“Yesterday,” Universal and Working Title’s musical rom-com featuring the music of The Beatles, earned $1.25 million in its Thursday box office previews from 2,200 screens. It opens on 2,603 North American screens on Friday.
Danny Boyle directs the romantic comedy about a struggling musician who gets in a traffic accident and wakes up to discover that he’s the only person in the world with any memory of the music of The Beatles. Universal Pictures and Working Title are releasing the film, and the studio is projecting a $10 million opening in the weekend ahead of July 4.
It also opens against the horror movie “Annabelle Comes Home,” which opened earlier in the week on Wednesday and brought in $3.5 million in its previews. That film is projected for a $30 million five-day opening and will likely finish behind “Toy Story 4” for the top spot at the box office.
Boyle’s “Steve Jobs” earned $7.1 million when it went wide on a similar number of screens in 2015. As for how “Yesterday” compares to another recent romantic comedy, “Long Shot,” with Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron, earned $660,000 in its previews before opening to $9.7 million.
Richard Curtis wrote the screenplay for “Yesterday,” in which Himesh Patel stars as the singer-songwriter who hits his big break when he realizes that The Beatles never existed and he’s able to capitalize on sharing their songs as his own. Lily James, Kate McKinnon and singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran star in the film. It currently has a 64% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
“Annabelle Comes Home” from New Line opened on Wednesday and grossed another $3.6 million on Thursday night, bringing its cumulative total so far to $10.8 million. “Annabelle Comes Home” is the third film in the series of horror films spinning off from “The Conjuring” universe about a family who encounters a toy doll possessed with an evil spirit. Gary Dauberman directs the film that stars Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson and McKenna Grace.