“Miss Bala,” the Gina Rodriguez-fronted remake of the Spanish-language action film of the same name from 2011, earned $650,000 in Thursday box office previews on 2,050 screens. It will open over 2,000 screens this weekend.
Sony’s English-language version of the survival thriller has the studio projecting a $5 million opening, with independent trackers saying it could go as high as $7-$10 million this weekend. It doesn’t have much competition at the theaters since it is opening on Super Bowl weekend, which hasn’t been a good time historically to open a movie.
According to Comscore, weekend totals over Super Bowl weekend have dropped at least 42 percent for each of the last four years when compared to the weekend prior to the Super Bowl. Last year, when Sony’s “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” was the number one film, the overall box office totals for the week dropped 52 percent from the previous week. And dating back to 1999, the highest opening for any film on Super Bowl weekend came in 2008 when the “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Concert Tour” film brought in $31.1 million.
“Miss Bala” stars Gina Rodriguez as a woman drawn into a dangerous world of crime and drug-related murders at the hands of a gang. She’s then forced to use her cunning, inventiveness and strength to survive. Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight”) directed the American remake from a screenplay by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer. It was filmed in Mexico.
Also opening on just four screens this weekend is “Arctic,” which stars Mads Mikkelsen in a different sort of survival thriller.