SATURDAY AM: Universal and Amblin’s Steven Spielberg Disclosure Day is doing much better than expected with an expected $44M domestic opening, half of that fueled by Imax and PLFs, and that’s a good thing. There was some concern heading into the weekend that the wheels were going to fall off this UFO; Monday’s press screening at LA’s The Grove received limp claps and a lot of cynicism from fellow reporters.

However, Universal has been able to draw out that older skewing audience that grew up with Spielberg, closes to 40% over 45, while also hitting millennials (25-34) who were the biggest demo at 24%. The biggest reason why audiences bought tickets to Disclosure Day? Spielberg at 55% per Screen Engine and Rentrak’s PostTrak. Evidence that Uni was going after an older demo remains in the iSpot figures which show a linear TV spend north of $24M, more than the first weekend spends of Masters of the Universe ($12M) and just under that of Star Wars: Mandalorian and Grogu (near $29M). Most of the ads were taken on NBC (33%) with spots running during NBA games, the Winter Olympics the Super Bowl, MLB games and La Casa de los Famsos.

Diversity demos were 57% Caucasian, smaller than usual 18% Latino and Hispanic which is always dominant in any box office weekend, 11% Black, and 8% Asian American. Spielberg’s latest is playing evenly throughout the country but best in the Mountain and West. The AMC Lincoln Square in NYC is currently the pic’s top grossing venue with north of $85K.

Credits to Uni, they cut a really intriguing ‘what-the-hell-is-going-on’ trailer for this movie between the animals peacefully approaching humans and Emily Blunt speaking in alien tongues. PostTrak exits show that 26% of those moviegoers polled said it was the most influential piece of marketing. CinemaScore was a B, lower than Minority Report and War of the Worlds‘ B+, however, Disclosure Day was no A.I. (C+). PostTrak exits show a 61% definite recommend, which is alight. Now, it’s all about legs for the reported net $115M production.

Talk about receiving applause at the LA Grove, let’s hear it for Focus Features’ Obsession which had a packed auditorium 7 at the 7:15PM show. When do you experience that in a movie’s fifth Friday? As we told you yesterday the Blumhouse co-production, Curry Barker directed genre romance pic is outstripping the Oscar winning Blumhouse Get Out this weekend at the domestic B.O, but now that cume will be higher by EOD Sunday with $190.3M after a $21M fifth weekend, -17%. What is a great comp here? How about 1999’s Oscar nominated summer surprise The Sixth Sense which had five $20M+ weekends straight. Obsession (outside its $17.1M opening weekend) has had four out of five $20M+ weekends with its cume outstripping that M. Night Shyamalan horror pic by +8% by tomorrow, that movie finaling at $293.5M domestic. What’s next for Obsession? How about an Oscar, Oscar campaign? We’ll see.

All films this weekend are ringing up $127.4M at the domestic B.O. with Universal repping 51% of that total between Disclosure Day and Obsession. The frame is -17% from a year ago when Uni launched the live-action take of DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon to $84.6M.

Lionsgate Premiere (the label dedicated to more independent releases) has the Chinese-Hong Kong martial arts feature The Furious from Kenji Tanigaki which is looking at $1.4M on Friday and $3M for the weekend at 1,744 sites. Some rivals are surprised that the movie is as limited as it is as critics love it at 97% certified fresh in addition to audiences with an A CinemaScore. Pic is playing the coasts (31% of the gross is coming from the West compared to a norm of 25% for other titles this weekend) with the AMC Empire NYC The Furious’ best multiplex with $15K-plus. Half of the audience is under/over 35. Diversity demos are 31% Caucasian, 23% Latino and Hispanic, 20% Black, 19% Asian and 7% Asian American. Trailer below:

Bleecker Street’s RuPaul comedy Stop! That! Train! from filmmaker Adam Shankman brought it Friday with $930K for what’s expected to be a $2.2M+ opening at 1,161 sites. Bleecker has been trying to make roads in the indie comedy space and that’s a higher start than their previous Downton Abbey spoof Fackham Hall ($625K opening at 1,112 sites) and Spinal Tap II: The End Continues ($1.6M at 1,970 theaters). We’re hearing good ticket sales in NYC, LA, Boston, San Francisco, Palm Springs Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, DC, Philly and San Diego to name a few. Rotten Tomatoes critics are at 83% fresh with audiences at 81%.

Trailer below:

FRIDAY MIDDAY: Good news so far: Universal and Amblin’s Steven Spielberg-directed Disclosure Day is coming in ahead of expectations (which had been $35 million at the domestic B.O.) with a $42.5M three-day cume at 3,824 screens after a Friday that’s shaping up to be $18.5M including last night’s previews. Disclosure Day has all the intelligent life of Imax and PLF auditoriums working in its favor.

That would be the best-ever start for a Spielberg and Amblin original movie; the story is by the three-time Oscar winner, with his longtime collaborator David Koepp penning the screenplay. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score stands at 75%. CinemaScore is out later tonight. The CinemaScores for E.T. and Close Encounters are unavailable from the audience exit firm, but among Spielberg sci-fi movies Minority Report and War of the Worlds get a B+, while A.I. (based on concepts by Stanley Kubrick, who handed them over to Spielberg) was a low C+.

Here are the domestic rankings to date:

Offshore, Thursday grossed another $5.3M, taking Disclosure Day‘s foreign running cume to $11.2M.
Running global cume is hovering around $30M before counting Friday’s international B.O. and global’s Saturday and Sunday. Again, the expectation was a $65M global start, and it’s likely Disclosure Day will best that.

Updates are as follows:

The UK & Ireland added $900,000 Thursday, taking the 2-day total to $1.2M. Thursday’s result is in line with the Thursday opening of Ready Player One, above Project Hail Mary, and almost double Arrival, whilst the pic’s first two days are 59% above Twisters which also opened on a Wednesday. Universal’s results across Wednesday and Thursday accounted for a third of all box office, positioning Disclosure Day as the clear No. 1 film in a competitive market at 720 sites (widest ever for Spielberg there), with eight films grossing over £1M. The BFI Imax and Odeon Luxe Leicester Square were top-grossing venues Thursday, with Imax repping 14% of tickets sales there.  

France minted $400K on Thursday taking the 2-day cume to $1M at 680 screens, and making the pic No. 1 in the market. That’s more than double the admissions of second-placed local blockbuster De Gaulle Part 1. Imax reps 5.3% of the Spielberg pic’s admissions, with PLFs delivering 8%. The results over the pic’s first two days is more than double Project Hail Mary and Arrival, as well as topping Twisters, One Battle After Another and Blade Runner 2049. 

In Australia, Disclosure Day has reached a running total of $1.2M, including an early estimate of $600K for Friday’s results. Disclosure Day is opening across 312 screens, including 10 Imax screens, which account for a strong 11% of the cume to date. The pic is hands down the clear No. 1 film in the market, taking 26% share of the total box office Friday with a result that is above One Battle After Another and Arrival, and in line with Interstellar and Twisters.

Mexico has had an excellent start, adding $422K on Thursday to take the title’s two-day total to $900K. Disclosure Day is the clear No.1 in the market with close to a third of market share (despite World Cup screenings). Mexico’s opening game of the World Cup had less impact than expected on Thursday, as the movie came in above Interstellar and Project Hail Mary, and more than double One Battle After Another.

Brazil has had an excellent start across 972 screens, grossing $400K on Thursday to take Disclosure Day‘s two-day total to $600K, ranking No. 1. The strong Thursday result is more than double Project Hail Mary and Twisters, as well as topping Ready Player One. Imax is good at 5% of business from 12 screens, with 10% coming from all PLFs. 

Italy added $264K from 520 screens Thursday, ranking No. 1 with a strong 34% share of total box office and the highest screen average in the market. Imax drove close to 4% of business from seven sites, and 70mm repped 3.3% from one location. Thursday’s gross is above Project Hail Mary, One Battle After Another and Arrival, and almost 3x Twisters. The two-day total has now reached $600K.

Germany added $221K on Thursday, following their strong start on Wednesday’s launch ($351K). The two-day total is now at $600K, with Imax accounting for an 8.4% share. The Thursday result – the standard opening day in Germany – is above Arrival and Twisters. 

Korea grossed $177K on Thursday, taking Disclosure Day‘s two-day total to $600K. The Thursday result is above One Battle After Another and in line with Blade Runner 2049.

The Netherlands grossed $117K at No. 1 on Thursday with a strong 22% share of the total market. The result is above Twisters, Ready Player One, Project Hail Mary and Interstellar, and more than 3x Arrival. Imax share of B.O. is strong at 20%, with Dolby delivering another 8%. The two-day total has now reached $255K.

Hong Kong has had a good start with $300K across the first two days, ranking No. 1 in the market. The two-day result is above Twisters, which also opened on a Wednesday, while Thursday’s gross is above Arrival and Project Hail Mary, and more than double One Battle After Another. 

Poland collected $195K across the first two days, ranking No.1 with a strong 23% market share. Imax is fueling a 12% share from just eight screens.  

FRIDAY AM UPDATE AFTER EXCLUSIVE: Previews in North America for Universal and Amblin’s Steven Spielberg movie Disclosure Day came in at $6.5 million, which takes the Thursday night and Wednesday offshore combined take to $12.5M. We’ll get another update on international later Friday morning.

That preview figure for the $115M net production is on par with Alien: Romulus ($6.5M previews, 3-day of $42M), just ahead of Jordan Peele’s Nope ($6.4M previews, $44.3M), and just under that of The Marvels ($6.6M previews, $46.1M). If Uni hits a $40M+ opening on this movie in the U.S./Canada, they’ll be very happy. Again, as we previously told you, Spielberg, the architect of the blockbuster, is a filmmaker who isn’t about the enormous opening, but rather about his legs.

See the chart of his top bows below.

Among the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s sci-fi pics, Disclosure Day‘s audience score on Rotten Tomatoes ain’t too shabby at 74%, higher than E.T. (72%), A.I. (64%) and War of the Worlds (42%) but under Close Encounters of the Third Kind (85%) and Minority Report (80%).

Disclosure Day is one of two wide entries this weekend, the other being Bleecker Street’s RuPaul comedy Stop! That! Train!

RELATED: ‘Stop! That! Train!’ Review: RuPaul Takes Drag Race To The Movies With A Hit-And-Miss Homage To ‘Airplane’ And ‘Naked Gun’

Interesting to note in regards to weekdays: Focus Features’ Obsession beat Scary Movie on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Phenomenal weekly hold in week 4 of -11%. The Curry Barker-directed pic about a toxic relationship hasn’t broken up with audiences yet.

PREVIOUSLY, EXCLUSIVE: Sources are telling us that the first day worldwide of Steven Spielberg’s alien feature Disclosure Day is around $12 million. That includes a $6M Wednesday from its first swath of overseas markets, in addition to domestic previews which are around $6M from showtimes that began at 2 p.m. today.

As always, that Thursday night domestic number is an estimate; previews by Friday AM could come in higher or lower.

The movie starring Emily Blunt, Colman Domingo and Josh O’Connor is expected to do around $65M+ worldwide, and about $35M give or take domestic. The Rotten Tomatoes critical score at 82% certified fresh in comparison to the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s other sci-fi pics is higher than his War of the Worlds (76%) and A.I. (76%) but lower than Close Encounters of the Third Kind (91%) and Minority Report (89%).

Wednesday’s foreign take of $6M includes all key markets except for China and Spain, where Disclosure Day bows Friday. The pic’s overall touch-down is in 73 markets on more than 50,600 screens in 21,600 locations by EOD tomorrow. Overall foreign opening is targeted at $30M+. In many places abroad, Disclosure Day is already beaming in more cash than Spielberg’s previous sci-fi movie, Ready Player One. However, that movie is a tough comp (until it’s not): It opened offshore to a lofty $49M ($102.7M WW) juiced by a vibrant pre-Covid China marketplace.

The UK and Ireland’s $1.2M Wednesday for Disclosure Day reps a strong 36% market share at No. 1 across 650 sites. It will expand to 720 locations by Friday and will be the market’s widest release for Spielberg. Wednesday’s result is above the same day’s previews for Twisters, in line with the first Wednesday for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and M:I – The Final Reckoning (Mon/Tue openings) and above the Thursday start for Ready Player One.

France grossed $632K on Wednesday from 73K admissions, bowing across 680 screens and notching No. 1 with a 25% share of total market admissions. This Wednesday result is above Blade Runner 2049, One Battle After Another, Twisters and more than double A Quiet Place: Day One, Arrival and Project Hail Mary in admissions. Disclosure Day has received positive audience reactions, including a 3.8/5-star rating on Allocine.

Mexico was also muy bien with $486K on Wednesday, No. 1 with a strong 29% market share across 1,800 screens. This is in line with the standard opening day (Thursday) for Twisters and above Project Hail Mary and Interstellar. 

Korea opened to $383K on Wednesday on 1,071 screens, Spielberg’s second-widest release behind Ready Player One’s 1,079 in the market. Disclosure Day ranks first and claimed 32% of total box office during the market’s bi-monthly Culture Day. This Wednesday start is above Twisters and more than double One Battle After Another.

Germany grossed $348K on Wednesday across 520 screens, ranking No. 1 with 21% market share. That’s above the Wednesday previews for Twisters. 

Italy made $336K on Wednesday, ranking No. 1 with 30% market share. This is above the Wednesday previews for Ready Player One and Twisters. 

Brazil had a good start with $231K on Wednesday at No. 2 behind Scary Movie, which is over-indexing in this market. Wednesday’s result is in line with the standard opening day (Thursday) for Ready Player One and above Project Hail Mary, Twisters and Blade Runner 2049. 

In Australia, Disclosure Day has reached a running total of $594K, starting its release with limited sneaks Wednesday night and adding $406K on Thursday. The pic launched on 312 screens. Today, the pic was No. 1 in the market with a 36% share of the Top 10 titles. This result is well above One Battle After Another and Arrival.