'Magic Mike XXL' Box Office: Channing Tatum Sequel Grinds $9.3M Wednesday

Since Warner Bros./ Time Warner Inc. and Paramount/ Viacom Inc. tend to release their box office figures on opposite ends of the morning, I'm putting this Magic Mike XXL piece out now with the intent of getting back to Terminator: Genisys in a separate piece later today.

Magic Mike XXL, the $14 million sequel to the surprise 2012 smash, again features Channing Tatum and his pals as male strippers. The $7m Steven Soderbergh sequel opened with a smashing $39m back in June 2012 and went on to earn $113m domestic and $167m worldwide.  Soderbergh stepped away from the director's chair this time, giving the throne to Gregory Jacobs. Jacobs is Soderbergh's favorite first assistant director and has a resume dating back to 1989. So while this is a case of a guy with little "I'm the director!" experience (he has two low-budget indies to his name), this isn't a "plucked out of films school on the strength of one cool commercial" situation. While the original film was a grim and morose drama about the challenges of economic mobility in a recession, this one (for which Soderbergh acted as the director of photography because he's nice like that) is basically a straight-out party movie.

The film got off to a solid start on Wednesday with a robust $9.315 million, which included $2. 3m worth of Thursday previews. The first film had an insanely frontloaded Fri-Sun weekend three years ago ($39m off a $19m Friday), so comparisons will be challenging and a little speculative. Offhand, and I reserve the right to revise these estimates as the weekend goes forward, it's looking like a 4.2x weekend multiplier (same as Despicable Me 2 in 2013) for a $40m debut weekend, which is terrific for the $14m sequel. If it plays closer to The Lone Ranger, which had a 5x multiplier that year, it gets to $46.5m. Either one counts as a win in my book. Critics have been kind to the nearly plot-less character study, with many arguing that it is basically the "all fun, all the time" movie audiences thought they were getting last time. So basically it's Expendables 2, but I cannot say for certain as I had to pass on the screenings.

I'm hoping to be able to speak with some authority by the end of the weekend, so maybe I will take the plunge and try to bring my newborn to an early morning matinee and sit in the back and hope for the best. Sadly the Pacific Theaters "Mommy Movie Monday" (IE - take your baby to the movies day) is offering Terminator Genisys instead of Magic Mike XXL, proving that Pacific Theaters hates mommies and/or babies. It will be interesting to see how front loaded the film turns out to be, as many audiences were a bit surprised to see a Stephen Soderbergh movie in the middle of their male stripper comedy. The first Magic Mike did stick around though, earning a solid 2.8x weekend-to-final multiplier. Although to be fair, July 2012 was a pretty empty affair thanks to everyone running scared from The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises.

Again, I don't want to have to repeat myself too much over the weekend so I'll leave it there for now. I'll be back probably on Saturday for the Friday figures and the holdover news. By the way, Inside Out passed $200 million domestic on Tuesday while Spy crossed $90m, so there's that.