Horror fans knew Paramount’s Primate was something special (read Josh’s review), but would general audiences go ape over the Johannes Roberts-directed animal slasher in which a chimpanzee infected with rabies terrorizes a bunch of teens?
Social media has been abuzz all week and through the weekend, shouting from the top of the Empire State Building as to how good Primate is, but kudos to the Paramount Pictures marketing department for pushing it viral. They have an incredibly well-oiled machine that not only took Smile from streaming candidate to festival hit to global dominance but also leveraged the Primate hype to gain awareness across the board and build to an impressive opening.
Primate opened at over 2,900 locations, heading to an estimated $11 million weekend after earning $4.5 million on Friday. With a reported budget of $21M, Primate would love to clear the global mark of $40M over its run, which shouldn’t be too difficult considering the mix of hype and 75%+ critic and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (it also scored a “B-” grade on CinemaScore exit polls).
Paramount Pictures also used the opportunity to sneak in a chilling theater-exclusive trailer for Passenger, which opens in theaters May 29.
READ ALSO: Primate Review: Old-School Animal Attack Horror Is a Breath of Fresh Air
(For those wondering, Avatar: Fire and Ash continued its dominance, clearing the global $1 billion mark after three weekends in cinemas.)
In other impressive news, THR notes that Sony’s adventure comedy Anaconda passed a milestone, earning over $100 million at the global box office ($101.6 million, in fact). The Jack Black and Paul Rudd-starrer made $1.28 million on Friday from 3,075 locations, with a projected $4.6 million domestic weekend.
Not bad for a movie that had a rash of less-than-impressive test screenings and negative hype, including 51% on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing. Truth be told, Anaconda is actually pretty hilarious and fun, which is reflected in the box office and audience score of 76%. Did critics get this wrong? The budget is reportedly $45M, which makes this a decent win for Sony.
What were your thoughts on both?
