“Sully” soared high during Thursday previews, banking $1.35 million at the box office.
Clint Eastwood‘s latest directorial effort tells the story of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who successfully landed a plane on the Hudson River in 2009 after a bird strike. All 155 passengers were safely evacuated.
Tom Hanks stars as Sully, and Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney and Anna Gunn co-star.
The Thursday number for “Sully” is a good one, given that Hanks’ “Bridge of Spies” grossed $500,000 at the Thursday previews. It ended up grossing $15.4 million on opening weekend when it debuted last year. In 2014, the actor’s film “Captain Phillips” opened to $600,000 and earned $25.7 million its opening weekend.
“Sully” is expected to make $24 million, based on a production budget of about $60 million. Reviews have been good — the biopic just received an 82 percent “fresh” score from critics counted on Rotten Tomatoes.
On Thursday, TheWrap reported that Warner Bros., the distributor, spared no expense when it came to getting the film as accurate as possible. The studio hired some of the actual rescuers that were there in 2009, and drove an A320 aircraft from the Mojave desert to Hollywood.
Screen Gems and Unique Features genre thriller “When the Bough Breaks” is also opening this weekend, and is set to easily grab second place with predictions close to $20 million from roughly 2,200 screens. Sony, the film’s distributor, is estimating roughly $11 million.
The film was produced for $10 million and stars Morris Chestnut and Regina Hall, revolving around the danger posed to a growing family by their increasingly psychotic surrogate. No Rotten Tomatoes score is available yet, as it doesn’t appear to have been screened for critics ahead of its release.
This weekend, Relativity is back after their bankruptcy filing with the “The Disappointments Room,” directed by D.J. Caruso (“Disturbia”). It is tracking at a low $2 million ahead of its debut run on roughly 1,500 screens, which sets the stage for one of the worst wide-release openings of all time.
Starring Kate Beckinsale, Lucas Till and Michaela Conlin, the film revolves around unspeakable horrors that a mother and her young son discover in the attic of their country home.