American Gangster Set For Successful $40M Opening Weekend

Ridley Scott should be happy, his latest movie American Gangster looks set to become a ‘can’t miss hit’ at the box office. The film is released next weekend alongside Bee Movie, which is set to have a very successful $38 million opening.

If American Gangster and Bee Movie can earn around $40M when they open, it will be only the 3rd-time in modern box office history that two movies have opened that big on the dame day. The last time this feat was accomplished was back in November 2006 when Happy Feet earned $41.5M and Casino Royale grabbed $40.8M.

American Gangster, so far, has a better tracking performance 10 days away from release than last year’s Best Picture The Departed had at the same point. According to an Un-Aided Awareness survey, the R-Rated American Gangster has 8% compared to Martin Scorsese’s 3% for his crime drama. The Un-Aided Awareness is the best tracking measure for audience buzz. The survey shows that moviegoers are talking about American Gangster with no prompting.

American Gangster is quite well known about with a Total Aware of 82%. This is much stronger that this week’s openers, Saw IV and Dan in Real Life who both had just 55%.

It seems the marketing department at Universal is definitely doing their job right. Will you be going to see American Gangster when it’s released?

Get the latest news in our RSS Feed, Newsletter or follow us on Twitter.