A24’s R-rated Dwayne Johnson movie The Smashing Machine arrived on three week tracking looking quite buff this AM with an outlook around $20 million when it hits theaters on Oct. 3.
Johnson stars opposite Emily Blunt in a story about mixed-martial arts and UFC champion, Mark Kerr. The pic’s world premiere notched a 15 minute-plus standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival which brought Johnson to tears. The pic’s director, Benny Safdie, also won the Silver Lion Best Director at the festival. Following the pic’s North American premiere at TIFF, reviews on Rotten Tomatoes stand at 80% fresh with Deadline’s own Damon Wise exclaiming, “Dwayne Johnson owns the whole thing with his truly remarkable work as fighter Mark Kerr, disappearing so fully underneath Kazu Hiru’s astonishing prosthetics.”
Smashing Machine‘s first choice is best with men over 25, followed by women over 25 (a serious component of Johnson’s fanbase). Overall first choice is ahead of A24’s Civil War, the studio’s record stateside opener at $25.5M. Should Smashing Machine‘s projection hold, it will rank as A24’s second highest debut ever at the domestic B.O. First choice is also quite close to that of 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon from director Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio; that movie opening to $23.2M during the actors strike when the cast couldn’t promote.
Should Smashing Machine hit its forecast, it will also be on par to another R-rated serious title that Johnson starred in back in 2013, Pain and Gain, opposite Mark Wahlberg. That movie, which followed Florida drug-taking bodybuilders immersed in an extortion ring, opened to $20.2M and finaled at $49.8M domestic and $87.3M global.
Smashing Machine precedes the next big tentpole of the fall, Disney’s Tron: Ares on Oct. 10. Also going wide on Oct. 3 is IFC’s horror movie Good Boy and Bleecker Street’s erotic thriller, Bone Lake.