Whalefall Gets Swallowed at the Box Office: $8M Domestic Opening

"20th Century Studios' Whalefall opened in fourth place with an estimated $8 million from 3,065 theaters, a $2,610 average, according to Sunday estimates reported by Boxoffice Pro and JoBlo. TheWrap reported a lower domestic estimate of $7.3 million against a worldwide total of about $17 million, while JoBlo and 411Mania listed $9.5 million from overseas for a $17.5 million global start. TheWrap and Deadline put the film's net budget at $60 million. Deadline reported on October 16 that the California-shot film had been tracking north of $11 million for the weekend.

The Brian Duffield-directed adaptation of Daniel Kraus's novel stars Austin Abrams as a young man swallowed by a sperm whale, with Josh Brolin as his late father. Reviews were not the problem: Boxoffice Pro listed a 71% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, TheWrap reported 81% from audiences, and CinemaScore audiences gave it a B. TheWrap grouped the film with October's other misfires, Warner Bros.' Digger and Sony's The Social Reckoning, and 411Mania attributed the soft start partly to competition from Street Fighter and You Can See Everything and projected a domestic finish around $25 million, which would leave the film well short of recouping.

JoBlo called the result ""a bit of a flop"" and ""another troubled launch"" for 20th Century, following the earlier underperformance of The Dog Stars, arguing that Disney ""seems to not really know how to open non-event live-action films these days."" Whalefall's overseas opening outpaced its domestic number, which gives the studio some room internationally, but the domestic start is less than half the tracking figure Deadline reported two days before release."