Early results are starting to come in from matinees today and it appears that Disney’s Big Hero 6 and Paramount’s Interstellar could be neck in neck tonight but the odds-on favorite to win the weekend right now is Big Hero with an estimated gross of around $60M compared to Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi film’s $51M to $53M. That’s the early read right now, given the matinees. Friday grosses for Big Hero will include the $1.4M the animated film got last night in late shows (which shows a strong interest from adult audiences) and Paramount will count in the $2.7M Interstellar pulled in last night (with IMAX grosses tallied in). So we expect high teens (maybe around $16M+) tonight for Big Hero with Interstellar edging in a slight lead by tonight ($17.5M to $19M). However, with a big bump from family audiences on Saturday and Sunday, watch for Big Hero 6 to catapult over the space crew. More grosses will be coming in tonight.
In terms of social media, the fight online couldn’t be closer between the two openers, according to RelishMix which tracks engagement on the Big Three — YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Through yesterday, YouTube video views for Big Hero 6 were at 39M just a little over Interstellar at 37M, but the interesting thing is that theInterstellar videos are being reposted at an exceptional EOR (earned, owned ratio) of 26 to 1 with its animated competitor at 16 to 1 ratio. Since the latter is a family film, you have to take into account that it would have less re-posting but the younger demos tend to watch the videos repeatedly.
“Interstellar has been on a long burn social fuse for three weeks and spiking with along the way,” said RelishMix’s Marc Karzen. “Facebook buzz for it just popped from the Wednesday night sneak peeks at 293% over Big Hero at 28%.”
Who has the social star power? Interstellar‘s Mathew McConaughey with 3.8M Facebook and 1.1M Twitter followers (added to mix with Jessica Chastain, Christopher Nolan and superfan pages for Anne Hathaway). Also not surprising is that the sci-fi flick has had consistent hashtag activity over the week, but Big Hero 6got a big jolt to 11K after the premiere and a nice pick me up also from the musical group Fall Out Boy (9.1M Facebook and 1.1M Twitter followers) who are promoting the soundtrack.
http://deadline.com/2014/11/interstellar-big-hero-6-box-office-1201274335/