Sony’s Uncharted set its course with $3.7 million in Thursday previews at the North American box office, where it should have no trouble winning the weekend race with $30 million or more.
The movie stars Tom Holland — who is still in theaters with the billion dollar-plus blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home — opposite Mark Wahlberg.
Uncharted, based on the popular PlayStation game series Naughty Dog, earned $22 million last weekend when opening in its first 15 markets. Better yet, the movie is one of the few Hollywood event pics during the pandemic to receive a release date in China, where it rolls out March 13.
Directed by Ruben Fleischer (Venom), the movie was conceived as an origin story for the game series’ globe-trotting adventurer Nathan Drake, played by Holland.
Nathan begins the story as a bartender before he is recruited by seasoned treasure-hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Wahlberg) to recover a fortune amassed by Ferdinand Magellan and lost 500 years ago. What starts as a heist job for the duo becomes a globe-trotting, white-knuckle race to reach the prize before the ruthless Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas), who believes he and his family are the rightful heirs.
The Channing Tatum-starrer Dog also opens nationwide this weekend. The United Artists release started off with $1.3 million in Thursday previews.
Tatum co-directed the passion project alongside his Magic Mike collaborator Reid Carolin.
Inspired by 2017’s HBO documentary War Dog: A Soldier’s Best Friend, the film follows Jackson Briggs, an Army Ranger desperate to see action again after getting sidelined by a brain injury that induces seizures. To get back into his commanding officer’s good graces, he accepts an assignment to drive Lulu, an Army dog who served in Afghanistan, some 1,500 miles in his lovingly restored ’84 Bronco so the canine, herself traumatized by her wartime experiences, can attend the funeral of her late handler.
Source: Hollywood
