Sony/Spyglass’s romantic horror Heart Eyes had a solid showing in its Thursday previews, raking in $1.1 million as the film industry braces for the typical slowdown during Super Bowl weekend. As expected, the Universal/DreamWorks Animation title Dog Man is set to maintain its No. 1 spot at the box office with an estimated $20 million in its second weekend.
Historically, the box office tends to experience a decline of around 30% from Saturday to Sunday. However, according to Quorum, Super Bowl Sunday can see an even sharper drop, with revenue decreasing as much as 60%.
Heart Eyes, starring Jordana Brewster and Olivia Holt, is expected to bring in high single digits over the weekend.
In addition to Heart Eyes, Universal and 87 North are debuting the action film Love Hurts, which had a less impressive preview performance with $850K. The film is projected to earn a mid-single digit figure for the weekend.
Both Heart Eyes and Love Hurts kicked off their previews at 2PM, screening in approximately 2,600 locations. Both films feature Premium Large Format (PLF) screens, which may boost their weekend box office performance. Interestingly, both films have a production budget of $18 million.
Reviews for Love Hurts have been underwhelming, with a 23% Rotten score. In contrast, Heart Eyes is faring better with an 85% fresh rating, and it has earned a 3-star average on PostTrak.
Meanwhile, Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Dog Man continued its successful run, bringing in $881K in previews, a 4% increase from Wednesday. The film has now grossed $40.4 million in its first week.
The preview performance of Heart Eyes mirrors that of Companion, which also earned $1.1 million in Thursday previews just one week ago. While both films have similar preview figures, Companion benefited from excellent critical reception and strong audience feedback but ultimately earned just $9.3 million over its opening weekend, closing its first week with $12.4 million—against a production cost of under $10 million. Will Heart Eyes outperform this result? The key difference is that Companion is a psychological thriller, while Heart Eyes leans more heavily into slasher territory. However, with so many horror films scheduled for release this year, early box office numbers indicate that opening weekends for these films may become increasingly competitive. Before the pandemic, studios often spaced out genre releases to avoid oversaturation.