Gran Turismo Is Off To A Slow Start At The Box Office With $16.5 Million Estimated Debut

"Gran Turismo" has been revving its engines for a while, landing in a large number of overseas markets a couple of weeks ago and grossing $22.7 million internationally as of last weekend. Now, it's off to the races at the domestic box office and headed for an estimated $16 million dollar opening weekend, per The Hollywood Reporter. There are a couple of caveats to that number, starting with the fact that it includes $3.9 million in grosses from ten days of previews, rather than just the usual Thursday previews that get rolled into a movie's opening day box office. Secondly, it's hard to be sure of any estimate due to the wild card of National Cinema Day. 

On Sunday, August 27, tickets for movies across all showtimes and formats are priced at just $4. The initiative made its maiden voyage last year, courtesy of the nonprofit Cinema Foundation, as part of an effort to reignite the box office in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the National Association of Theater Owners, the first National Cinema Day brought in an estimated 8.1 million moviegoers for an estimated gross of $24 million, and was the highest-attended day of 2022. On Friday, analytics from EntTelligence (via Deadline) indicated that ticket presales for Sunday are outstripping Saturday by more than 700 percent, which could hit the turbo button for "Gran Turismo."

The movie is based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough, the third and youngest winner of a reality TV competition called "GT Academy," in which "Gran Turismo" players were given a shot at becoming professional racing drivers. Archie Madekwe ("Midsommar") plays Mardenborough, with David Harbour ("Stranger Things") as his trainer and Orlando Bloom ("The Lord of the Rings") as a Nissan marketing executive. "Gran Turismo" marks the first time that director Neill Blomkamp ("District 9") has brought a pre-existing franchise to the screen; he's previously worked on "Alien" and "RoboCop" movie projects, but those were ultimately shelved.

After "The Fast and the Furious" launched a successful video game franchise off the back of a movie, "Need for Speed" tried to do the same thing in reverse with a film starring Aaron Paul and Imogen Poots. Personally I think "Need for Speed" is seriously underrated. While it was panned by most critics (emphasis on most — we have good taste here at Slash Film Dot Com), it did manage to turn a modest profit at the box office. It opened somewhat softly with a $17.8 million opening weekend, and ultimately grossed $203 million worldwide against a $66 million production budget.

That success really hinged on the movie's performance in China, where it grossed $66.2 million (compared to just $43.5 million domestic). "Gran Turismo" doesn't hit theaters in China until September 1, so it remains to be seen whether it can go the distance in the same way that "Need for Speed" did. Here in the United Kingdom, "Gran Turismo" had a smaller opening weekend ($1.3 million USD) than "Need for Speed" did in 2014 ($3.3 million USD), though the difference is partly due to the pound dropping in value against the dollar over the past decade. It did at least manage to beat the UK opening of "Haunted Mansion" that same weekend.

Despite a turnaround in fortunes for video game movies with like hits like "Uncharted" and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," it's still a tough world out there, especially when competing with the lingering presence of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer." Currently, "Gran Turismo" looks set to open in first place at the box office this weekend, but "Barbie" is in with a shot at reclaiming the No. 1 spot with an estimated $15.7 million Friday-to-Sunday total that could climb higher with National Cinema Day ticket sales giving it a little extra Ken-ergy.