Lionsgate’s ‘Now You See Me 3’ Weaving Magic With No. 1 $20M+ Opening – Friday PM Box Office

FRIDAY MIDDAY: Lionsgate is looking at their third No. 1 opening of 2025 with their threequel Now You See Me: Now You Don’twhich is pulling a rabbit out of its hat with a $20M-$24M start after $7.5M Friday that includes those $2.1M previews. The pic is booked at 3,403 theaters.

Now You See Me 3 from director Ruben Fleischer has the best reviews and audience reactions so far in the Jesse Eisenberg-Woody Harrelson-Isla Fisher-Dave Franco trilogy at 60% fresh with Rotten Tomatoes critics and 83% with RT audiences.

The social media reach for the threequel across TikTok, YouTube, X, Instagram, and Facebook is close to 300 million followers, well ahead of the second installment’s nine years ago (at 126.5 million, completely different social media landscape) and ahead of such crime capers as Sony’s Caught Stealing (134.5M).

RelishMix spotted positive word of mouth ahead of opening: “Nostalgia fires up intent as fans clock the returning vibe and want the caper back on the big screen. You can feel the fist-pump energy in lines like ‘The OG’s are back’ and ‘We’re so back,’ and the Zombieland-style reunion chatter (‘Imagine the Zombieland reunion,’ ‘Magician Avengers let’s go’) reframes this as comfort-food spectacle. Second, the title finally lands as a shareable joke and a tiny masterstroke of brand repair; ‘Finally… they used ‘Now You Don’t’’.” There’s even goodwill for the movie coming out as far away as Taiwan.

The previous opening high (though not No. 1) for Lionsgate was their John Wick spinoff Ballerina at $24.5M during the first weekend of June. While not a success on its own for the franchise in the end at $58M stateside, $137.2M worldwide on a $90M+ production cost, the spinoff reportedly drove market value to the library of the Keanu Reeves action IP.

Second will be a fight between 20th Century Studios’ second weekend of Predator: Badlands and Paramount’s Edgar Wright reboot of The Running Man with Glen Powell, both hovering around $15M apiece. The latter is playing 3,534 theaters and is eyeing a $5.5M Friday while Badlands is seeing $4M in its second Friday at 3,725 sites. No RT score yet for Running Man. If Badlands hits $15M, that’s a -63% decline for a ten-day cume by Sunday of $68.3M. 2004’s Alien vs. Predator is currently the highest grossing title in the franchise with $80.2M stateside, $177.4M worldwide.

Paramount’s Regretting You continues to hold in the top 5 at 2,709 theaters with $1.1M in its fourth Friday and a fourth frame of $3.8M-43% with a running cume of $44.7M.

Fifth goes to NEON’s third Oz Perkins genre movie, the $6M microbudget production of The Keeper, with $1M today and $2M-$3M opening. Critics aren’t high on the movie giving it 59% on Rotten Tomatoes.

FRIDAY AM: While it may seem too close to call, there’s buzz that Lionsgate’s Now You See Me: Now You Don’t may have the best shot at No. 1 this weekend after collecting $2.1 million in total Thursday previews. At least that was the confidence last night from a handful of sources. Now You See Me 2 did $1.75M previews back in June 2016.

Paramount’s $110M redo of The Running Man grossed $1.9M across 3,000 theaters during Thursday night shows. Both Now You See Me 3 and Running Man are eyeing $20M+. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes have similar opinions for both titles, though Running Man has the edge, 64% to 59%.

The advantage that Now You See Me 3 has is its PG-13 rating compared with Running Man‘s R. Now You See Me 3 is looking to be both a date night movie while also appealing to families. The previous two movies made anywhere from 67% to 80% of their global box office abroad. Note, Lionsgate is one of the sole motion picture studios that licenses out foreign to fund their productions. Now You See Me 3 cost north of net $90M before P&A.

RELATED: ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’ Review: Gen Z-Driven Third Installment Attempts To Teach Old Magicians New Tricks

Meanwhile, Running Man‘s previews are in line with that of Neon’s The Monkey, which did $1.9M in total previews before a $5.8M Friday and a three-day total of $14M. Running Man‘s previews are well below that of Tron Ares, another 1980s sci-fi series reboot, which saw a $14.4M Friday and a three-day of $33.2M when it bowed last month.

The original Running Manstarring Arnold Schwarzenegger, opened in this same exact mid-November slot in 1987 with a No. 1 take of $8.1M (unadjusted for inflation). The movie finaled at $38.1M domestic and earned a B+ CinemaScore off a reported $27M production cost. The pic continued to hold No. 1 in its second weekend before ceding to Disney/Touchstone’s Three Men and a Baby over the Thanksgiving holiday. Running Man was the 30th highest-grossing movie of 1987 in a year that was led by Beverly Hills Cop ($153.6M), Platoon ($136.7M) and Fatal Attraction ($125.9M). Coming in the wake of summer 1987’s Predator, which at that time was Schwarzenegger’s highest-grossing movie of his career with $60M domestic, Running Man didn’t meet expectations, though its U.S.-Canada take was in line with previous Arnie movies like Commando, Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator.

Nonetheless, keep in mind that it’s a marathon not a sprint for both movies given that Thanksgiving is in two weeks.

20th Century Studios’ No. 1 pic of the week, Predator: Badlands, did an estimated $1.7M yesterday (off 26% from Wednesday) for a first-week tally of $53.2M. The Elle Fanning movie is expected to be down 60% in its second weekend, par for the genre.