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EXCLUSIVE: Apple Original Films and Paramount‘s Killers of the Flower Moon landed on more tracking services Thursday. The three-hour-plus epic directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio is set for an opening around $24 million when it goes wide on October 20.
Duly note, that new tracking service Quorum, which does six-week projections, had the same estimate two weeks ago.
Killers of the Flower Moon is currently tracking well with men and women over 25.
RELATED: ‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ Trailer Drops As October Release Date Nears
With a running time of 3 hours and 26 minutes, Killers of the Flower Moon is the second-longest movie of Scorsese’s career after The Irishman, which clocked in at 3 hours and 29 minutes. That Netflix movie didn’t get a wide theatrical release; instead it went limited with unreported grosses.
If Killers at its length can open to a $20M+ number, boosted by Imax, that’s commendable, despite the fact that the movie cost $200M. It will also be praiseworthy for a dramatic feature given the fact that it’s following in the wake of the first weekend of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film, which is expected to see a $100M+ start. Note that when it comes to assessing the profitability of movie, or breakeven, streamers don’t assess the same way a studio does in downstream revenues.
One of the comps on tracking for Killers of the Flower Moon is DiCaprio’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which had a running time of 2 hours and 41 minutes, with a $41M. DiCaprio’s Oscar winner The Revenant, which clocked in at 2 hours and 36 minutes, and went wide in its third week and saw a 3-day total then of $39.8M
In the wake of making its world premiere at Cannes, Killers of the Flower Moon notched a 97% fresh critical score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Killers of the Flower Moon was originally set to have a platform release beginning October 6 and then go wide October 20. Apple and Paramount opted to just go wide day-and-date globally.
Some distribution sources snarked that Killers of the Flower Moon was bound to move due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, but the film has stayed the course for an autumn release. Scorsese has been out there promoting the film, and DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are typically reserved in their press tours for movies anyway. Still, should a SAG-AFTRA strike end in the near future, Killers of the Flower Moon might be able to benefit from some last-minute press; if there’s anything movies need nowadays it’s more propping from their casts. We’ve seen several movies underperform this fall season due to that, i.e., Expendables 4, Dumb Money, etc.
Directed by Scorsese and written for the screen by Eric Roth and Scorsese, the fact-based Killers of the Flower Moon is based on David Grann’s bestselling book. Set in 1920s Oklahoma, it depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror. Jesse Plemons, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion and Tantoo Cardinal also star.