End of Oak Street Opens Big and Still Won't Be No. 1

End of Oak Street pulled in more than $2 million from Thursday preview screenings in the U.S., and Warner Bros. is now looking at a global opening between $38 million and $48 million, according to Deadline. That would be a solid number on almost any August weekend. It also will not be enough to win this one.

The breakdown: roughly $18 million to $23 million domestically, plus $20 million to $25 million from 74 overseas territories. Add it up and the movie is playing on about 24,000 screens worldwide at once, including France, Germany, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, the UK, China and Japan. Previews alone ran at 3,200 U.S. locations, with showtimes starting as early as 1 p.m. Thursday.

Standing in the way is Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is in its third weekend and still forecast to take $57 million to $72 million. That's the movie that opened to roughly $360 million domestically last month, beating the record Avengers: Endgame had held since 2019, then followed it with a $145 million second weekend. Coming second to that is not the same thing as underperforming.

Why Thursday Night's $2 Million Actually Matters

Preview grosses are the first hard data anyone gets, and studios read them like a weather report. Deadline lined this one up against two comparisons: Rampage did $2.4 million in previews back in 2018, and Blue Beetle managed $3.3 million in 2023 before opening to $25 million. So $2 million puts this film slightly under both.

Here's the interesting part. If the weekend lands at $18 million to $23 million, that's roughly nine to eleven times the preview figure — a much higher multiplier than Blue Beetle's. Distributors expect that when the audience skews family and female, because parents and older moviegoers don't turn up at 7 p.m. on a Thursday. They come Saturday afternoon. Weak previews with a strong multiplier is a different story than weak previews across the board.

What End of Oak Street Actually Needs to Earn

The budget is reported at $80 million to $92 million net, meaning after tax credits and rebates. The rough industry rule of thumb is that a wide release needs somewhere around two and a half times its production cost worldwide before it clears marketing and the exhibitors' cut. That puts the break-even conversation in the $200 million-plus range globally, which a $38 million to $48 million start can reach — but only with legs.

That's where the PG-13 rating and the 85% certified fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes start to matter more than opening night. A dinosaur movie parents can take a ten-year-old to, in mid-August with school not quite back in session, is built for word of mouth rather than a single explosive Friday.

The Other Movies Fighting for the Same Seats

Spider-Man Is Still Eating the Weekend

Three weekends in and Brand New Day is projected to hold the top spot with $57 million to $72 million. Sony's marketing has had the country's attention since late July, and every premium large-format screen it occupies is one End of Oak Street can't have.

PAW Patrol Wants the Exact Same Families

PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie is on 3,545 screens, and yes, it also has dinosaurs. For a family with a six-year-old, that's the cheaper, shorter, lower-stakes option. It won't touch the top of the chart, but it siphons off the youngest end of the audience.

Two More Titles In the Mix

Universal's The Odyssey is also in play, and Angel Studios has The Brink of War on 2,083 screens, aimed at a faith-and-heartland crowd that doesn't overlap much with the rest. Five wide releases competing at once is a genuinely crowded August, and crowded weekends compress everyone's numbers.

An Indie Horror Guy With a $90 Million Toy

David Robert Mitchell wrote, directed and produced this, and that's the detail most box office coverage skims past. Mitchell made It Follows in 2014 — a micro-budget horror film that became one of the decade's genuine indie breakouts — then followed it with the divisive Under the Silver Lake, which barely got a theatrical release. This is his first studio tentpole, financed by Warner Bros. and produced through J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot.

The cast reflects the same reach for grown-ups: Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, not two young leads chosen off social followings. Tracking reportedly showed women as the most enthusiastic group — mothers and Hathaway's own audience specifically. That's a suburban-creature-feature aimed at adults who'll bring their kids, not the reverse.

What to Watch by Sunday Night

Ignore the Friday headline and look at Sunday. The number that tells you whether End of Oak Street has a real life ahead of it is the weekend multiplier — Friday-to-Sunday growth, plus the CinemaScore. If Saturday runs ahead of Friday, the family crowd showed up and the film will hold through the back half of August. If Friday is the peak, it's a two-week run.

Practically speaking: if you're going this weekend and want a matinee, book it now, because Saturday afternoons are exactly where this movie and PAW Patrol will collide hardest. And if the overseas half comes in near the top of that $20 million to $25 million range, expect Warner Bros. to start talking about a sequel long before the domestic total settles.