Minecraft for Gear VR in 2 words: pixelated claustrophobia
Above: Minecraft in Gear VR.
Image Credit: Microsoft
A few minutes into exploring a Minecraft world in Samsung’s Gear VR head-mounted display, I started digging a hole in the ground. After getting a few meters into the earth, I faced dirt in every direction. Despite knowing in my heart that I was in a safe room with Oculus representatives and dozens of media professionals, I started to panic.
This is Minecraft: Gear VR Edition. Oculus VR held a special event during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week to show off a nearly complete version of the block-building phenomenon running in Samsung’s phone-holding virtual reality device (it’s also coming to thehigh-end Rift). I spent around 30 minutes exploring the game, and that experience made it clear that this is an application that could instantly show people the promise of VR. Minecraft is notoriously simple looking, but that didn’t prevent it from giving me moments of exhilaration and panic, and that’s something a lot of people will respond to. Analysts are already expectingmobile VR to generate $861 millionin spending this year, and it should also keep pace with console devices like Sony’s PlayStation VR as well as PC peripherals like HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. By 2020, research firm SuperData suspects mobile VR will represent $15.6 billion of a $40.4 billion virtual reality business worldwide.
Unlike Rift, Vive, and PSVR, Gear VR is not a high-end device that tracks your body or the tilt of your head. The result is that it is technically “less immersive,” but that’s not something you’re thinking about when digging through caverns in Minecraft.
Instead, Minecraft: Gear VR Edition puts you into its low-fi world better than any previous version. I played with an Xbox-style controller, and I had no issues walking around and digging up dirt and fighting off enemies. Instead of aiming with the analog stick, I controlled my targeting by looking around. This is something I’ve done in other VR games, but it was nice to see how quickly it made sense in a game I’ve already played for dozens of hours outside of VR.
Above: That’s a long fall, and it feels like it when you’re in VR.
Image Credit: Microsoft
At the event, Oculus had me sit in a swivel chair. This mean I could spin around to do a quick 180-degree turn to look the other way. Having a chair that can pivot along with a controller is probably the ideal way to play, but I also tested out what it’s like if you can’t swivel (like if you were in an airplane chair, for instance). And the game uses the standard snap-turning function that you’re going to see in a lot of VR games. This has you changing where you’re looking by jumping the camera in 10-degree increments. You might think that you’d want the camera to move smoothly when you use the right stick, but most people get motion sickness when they do that.
Beyond the movement, Minecraft in VR gave me some incredible sensations I never really had playing the game on PC. When I first started walking around in the world, the scale smacked me right in the nose. I could see huge mountain peaks and deep valleys flowing with water. It made me feel like a tiny person in a sprawling world. The level Oculus had us in had some Iron Golem creatures walking around, and it was something else to approach them and have to look up to see their faces. I have a memory of one standing right in front of me that I’m recalling right now. That’s imprinted on my brain as if it was something I truly experienced.
After my run in with the Golems, I started digging my aforementioned hole in the ground. And I can’t get over the real sense of claustrophobia I was feeling. It was dark, and I could only barely make out the low-resolution textures a few digital inches in front of me. Like with the creatures I met, I have a memory of having my body crammed into a small pit. On the verge of panic, I thankfully remembered the torches I started the demo with. I popped one onto the wall, and that brought me back from the edge. I’m delighted that I did not have to rip off my headset screaming in embarrassment.
That might sound like a nightmare, but I can honestly say that enjoyed it. It introduces a level of immediacy and presence to something that has a million other things going for it. And having the option to pop on a Gear VR anywhere you want is going to make this game an excellent showpiece for early virtual reality.
Microsoft and Oculus VR held a press event yesterday to demo Minecrafton the Gear VR for the first time. Oculus’ chief technical officer, John Carmack, was on hand to give his thoughts, and it turns out he’s been strapping smartphones to his face for a while now. But the demonstration showed that the game is still not quite performing up to its potential.
“About a year ago I gotMinecrafton the Gear VR and I couldn’t tell anyone about it,” said Carmack. “And it was extremely frustrating because I was playing this game and I could spend hours playing. […] I thought it was the best VR experience that we had available. For anything.”
The reason the Gear VR is the ideal platform forMinecraft, Carmack said, is because there are no wires tethering the user to a computer. With all the processing power built into the headset itself — in the form of a Samsung smartphone — there’s nothing holding the user back from moving in any direction.
“In VR, I want to go explore the world,” Carmack said. “I think that the ability to be wireless, to spin around and have that freedom, really makes this a unique experience. […] Minecrafthits all of those buttons very, very well. It is the quintessential open-world game, and being able to explore that world in VR was what I always thought the core of this was all cracked up to be.”
To enable that kind of experience, the demo space was littered with spinning office chairs and Gear VRs fitted with Samsung Galaxy S7 phones.
But whileMinecrafthas been up and running on the Gear VR for some time, it still has no release date. Looking atMinecraft: Pocket Editionside by side withMinecrafton the Gear VR, it’s easy to see why; right now, the view distance is remarkably shorter in VR.
The play space designed for journalists to experience was very narrow. While the frame rate was acceptable — I had no issues with nausea — the grand vistas I’ve come to appreciate inMinecraftwere almost entirely absent.
Once I broke free from the prepared environment and ran off into the world, I immediately noticed how details were only visible out to a stone’s throw away, a distance of perhaps 40 or 50 blocks. Past that, the edge of the rendered space manifested itself as an opaque white wall. Underground, in the pitch dark, that wall actually lit entire caves, meaning I could glitch the game into giving me enough light to see.
RIGHT NOW, THE VIEW DISTANCE IS REMARKABLY SHORTER IN VR
Inside the prepared environment, it seemed as if I could see farther up and down than I could see out into the distance.
Despite these technical issues with view distance, the locomotion system was particularly well-refined. Jumps had been smoothed out, and felt more like mantling obstacles in a third-person shooter than leaping into the air.
That freedom of movement was a recurring theme in Carmack’s short speech.
“Knowing that you don’t simply control your character to turn 90 degrees this way, to move over here and turn around, but instead to actually turn your body all the way around [is powerful],” Carmack said. “You know that you’re 200 meters away this way down the hill and around the bend from where you started, and that sense of being in a big world is wonderful.”
Carmack closed by reaffirming his belief thatMinecraftwould be available in VR for consumers very soon.
“I said this was my grail for VR, that this was the most important gaming application that I could do, or that I could be involved with, and so I’m very proud for the part that I’ve had and I’m happy to have worked with Microsoft and Mojang to get this at the point that it’s at. I’m excited to be supporting it in the coming years as things continue to improve.”
Computer scientists at Microsoft have developed a new artificial intelligence platform atop the hugely popular video gameMinecraft.Dubbed AIX, the platform hooks intoMinecraftand allows the AI to take control of a character and learn from its actions. It’s early days for the project; so far, the scientists have been hard at work getting the the AI to learn to climb a hill.
It’s a simple enough task to program directly, but for an AI that starts out knowing nothing at all about its environment or what it’s supposed to be doing, that’s a big ask. The AI not only needs to understand its surroundings, but it also needs to figure out the difference between day and night, why walking on lava is probably a bad idea, and when exactly it has achieved its goal via a system of rewards.
Microsoft’s AI isn’t quite there yet, but those wanting to program their own can do so this summer when the AIX software will be released for free and as open-source code. Budding programmers and researchers need only purchase a licence for the Java version of the game, which currently goes for £17.95 ($26.95/€19.95). AIX will run on Windows, Linux, or Mac OS, and researchers can programme their AI in any programming language they like. The only proviso is that AI experiments won’t be able to interact with other players online—at least not yet.
“People build amazing structures that do amazing things inMinecraft, and this allows experimenters to put in tasks that will stretch AI technology beyond its current capacity,” project lead Katja Hofmanntold the BBC. “But eventually, we will be able to scale this up further to include tasks that allow AI agents to learn to collaborate with humans and support them in a creative manner. This provides a way to take AI from where it is today up to human-level intelligence, which is where we want to be, in several decades time.”
While Microsoft says it’s entirely possible to program an AI, stick it inside a robot, and have that try to climb a real-world hill, it’s an extremely costly experiment—particularly if (when) the AI fails and the robot tumbles down the hill.Minecraftalso offers a number of different AI learning opportunities that aren’t always easy to try in the real world, including combat and building. Sure, the odd physics of theMinecraftworld might not be reflective of the real world, but the complex decisions and consequences inherent to playingMinecraftmay make it easier for AI to learn similar concepts.
AI research has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, but it typically focuses on having a computer learn a specific task, whether that’s beatinghumans inJeopardy, or, uhh,beating humans at the game of Go. Microsoft says that by usingMinecraft researchers will be able to create AI that’s more adept at “general intelligence,” learning in a similar way to humans by parsing information from light, smell, sound, and touch.
“[Minecraft] allows you to have ’embodied AI’,” AIX software engineer Matthew Johnson told the BBC. “So, rather than have a situation where the AI sees an avatar of itself, it can actually be inside, looking out through the eyes of something that is living in the world. We think this is an essential part of building this kind of general intelligence.”
Minecraft fans all over the world were elated to hear that the latest update scheduled for March 29 will not be the last chapter in the widely successful Minecraft game series. Telltale Games has recently announced that it will be adding three more episodes to its Minecraft: Story Mode series to the delight of fans of the game. The update that is being released on March 29 is now being speculated that it will act as a bridge to tie the remaining story together. While the three new episodes do not have release dates yet, players who wish to purchase episodes 6, 7 and 8 will have to have purchased at least the first episode in the series that came out in October 2015 called “The Order of the Stone”.
Minecraft’s fifth installment, “Order Up!” will see the protagonist, Jesse and his group to an abandoned temple where, following an ambush by the former Ocelot Aiden and his crew, the team will enter an entirely new world called Sky City. The ruler of Sky City finds out that the new Order of the Stone are up to no good, and the catalyst to bridge the next three episodes will be set forth in the game.
According to the Telltale Games blog, the upcoming three episodes will continue the adventures of the New Order of the Stone and will see Jesse and his team in new worlds that have never been experienced before, sure to thrill fans of the game series.
The fifth installment will also see a new character added to the team, voiced by Melissa Hutchinson, who is known as Clementine in Telltale Games Walking Dead game adaptation. While the three additional episodes do not have release dates yet, the update on March 29 will hold fans over until the new dates for release are announced.
4TH UPDATE, Writethru Saturday 12:26 AM:After a spell of big-budget disasters last year fromJupiter AscendingtoPan,it’s finally raining cash on theWarner Bros. lot in Burbank, CA asBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,is set to post the biggest pre-summer opening day with $81.3M (beating Furious 7‘s $67.4M) and weekend with $171M (outstripping The Hunger Games’ $152.5M) at 4,242 theaters. That’s the widest for any release prior to May and BvS also owns the records for the top March and Easter debuts. Reported earlier on Friday: Flash grosses show BvS winning over China with $21.2M. Add that tothe two-day $44M tallyand the pic’s foreign cume is north of $65M.
“It’s highly unusual to see a superhero movie that’s been panned like this with such a huge opening. Typically they open big and get great reviews,” said one insider, scratching their heads over the audience’s blasé B CinemaScore and the 30% Rotten Tomatoes rating.
Quite often branded tentpoles are teflon to poor reviews, and, yes, BvSis another example of the trend. Only Bond films have to sweat critical response since their fans skew older and that demo reads reviews. But it isn’t often that we see a movie open to $100M-plus off of panned reviews and OK audience reactions. Of note,BvSjoinsTwilight: Breaking Dawn 2($138.1M opening, B+ CinemaScore, 24% rotten) andTransformers: Revenge of the Fallen($109M opening, B+ CinemaScore, 19% rotten).
So before we even discuss what may have gone wrong here withBvS this weekend,let’s discuss what went right.
Warner Bros.’ decision to release a summer tentpole over Easter weekend was genius. More kids are off from school now than during the first weekend of the B.O. summer (first weekend in May). Seventy-six percent K-12 schools were out on Good Friday with another 45% off on Monday. Rather than get crushed by the next four-quad release on the summer calendar, WB protectedBvSby moving it to this Easter in August 2014; well beforeFurious 7set the frame on fire last year with a $147.1M opening. At this point,BvS will have plenty of breathing room in the weeks to come with the only obstacles potentially being Disney’s live action take on The Jungle BookandUniversal’s Snow White prequelThe Huntsman Winter’s War.
WB already knew that Easter audiences could lay golden eggs: the studio launched Clash of the Titansover the holiday space in 2010 ($61.2M opening). At one interval, BvS was scheduled to open during the first weekend in May, but then Marvel plopped Captain America: Civil War there.Prior to May,BvSwas originally scheduled to debut on July 17, 2015, but thanAnt-Manpushed it out. By movingBvSto Easter 2016, WB CEO Kevin Tsujihara was aware of the risks and rewards: 2015 was bound to be an off-year for the studio withoutBvSin the mix, but the studio had to get the franchise right since it was all about re-launching DC 2.0 on the big screen. While a B Cinemascore comes with a 2.9 multiple, the thinking is that BvS will leg out at 2.25x its opening to $385M stateside. The film needs to make roughly $900M worldwide if it’s going to break-even theatrically off its estimated production and P&A cost of $400M.
Next, the WB marketing and PR team did a stellar job at keeping the want-to-see alive forBvS over a 32-month period.BvSwas announced at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2013. Disney first piqued our interest with a teaser trailer 13 months before the Dec. 18, 2015 release date ofStar Wars: The Force Awakens. BvSdirector Zack Snyder dropped the first teaser 20 months ago at Comic-Con 2014. $150M global P&A spend and several trailer drops later, Warner Bros. finds itself with the best pre-summer opening of all-time. According to ComScore PostTrak polling, 18% of all moviegoers said that in-theater trailers influenced them the most to see BvS, while 17% said it was the online trailer and 11% cited TV spots.
In regards to what went awry withBvS, Warner Bros. could take a note from Disney when it comes to controlling word of mouth, specifically critical reviews. Disney was tasked with re-invigorating a major franchise,Star Wars,that was dormant over the last decade. As such, they made sure all the critics watched Episode VII at the same time. If there was any doubt that there was any potential bad word of mouth, Warner Bros. could have contained most of the critics at one screening, rather than spreading them out across a few during the last week. Poor reviews wound up taintingBvS unnecessarily after winning premiere audiences over in New York and London. Had Warners confined major city critics to watchingBvS on a specific day, they could have potentially lessened the blow here, and even curbed their B CinemaScore. It’s something to consider with the next DC title, Suicide Squad, around the corner in August.
Now in the wake of bad reviews and OK audience responses, team Snyder –which is in pre-production on Justice League —faces the challenge of changing their game up. At this time, despite any amount of money being deposited in Warner Bros. coffers fromBvS, it would be prudent to listen to critics and fans’ story notes, especially the near universal complaint that BvS is too long, too brooding, too hackneyed (did we really need to see Bruce Wayne’s parents die for the umpteenth time on the screen?). This is all for the sake of DC 2.0’s longevity moving forward.
At the same time, critics might acknowledge the strides that Warner Bros. has made in elevating the BatmanandSupermanfranchises. Given critics’ acerbic reactions, you’d think they were asked to sit throughGigliorSuperman IIIagain. While WB botched Superman in the 1980s withSuperman IIIandSuperman IV,BvSwasn’t a property they were just going to waste away. A lot of thought went into nurturing and getting this beast as good as possible with all studio departments working at full cycle.
Warner Bros. finally made the movie that mostBatmanfans wanted a see: A movie that was akin to an adaptation of Frank Miller’s belovedTheDark Knight Returnscomic book series, which ends with Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne beating the crap out of each other. No amount of dagger-throwing byNew York Timescritic A.O. Scott orWall Street Journal’sJoe Morgenstern was going to prevent audiences from watchingBvS. Not to mention, they finally got to see Wonder Woman’s bigscreen debut (a Fandango poll revealed that 88% were interested in seeing the movie just for her). Rev4 movie theater metrics showed that of those polled over the last two weeks in their theater sample, 75% said they wanted to buy a ticket toBvSto 18.5% who replied “No”. Sixty-percent of those polled by ComScore last night said they bought tickets in advance.
When WB began launching its Batman films in 1989 via Tim Burton’s psychedelic goggles, Miller’sDark Knight Returnshad already been in release for three years. At the time, the property was too ambitious for Warner Bros. to make: Batman was an old man, the story took place in an ultra-violent Gotham and it presented this high concept notion of the city’s good guys going at each other’s throats. A few years ago, I askedBvSscreenwriter David Goyer ifDark Knight Returnsis the movie that everyone wants to see, then why didn’t Warners already make it? His response was that the property was too risky to just spring on mass audiences; their palette needed to be primed before springing Dark Knight Returns on them. And that’s essentially the evolution that’s been going on from Burton to Christopher Nolan to Snyder.
*****
BvS’ $27.7M Thursday reps 34% of its Friday figure, beating all superhero preview nights outside of The Dark Knight Rises’ midnight shows ($30.6M). Not only are Imax, RealD, 4DX drivers for BvS’ biz, but this film is projecting 41 times on Saturday at the Hollywood Arclight, with showtimes ranging from 8:30AM to 2:30AM. Meanwhile, over at the AMC Empire at 42nd Street in NYC,BvS boasts 53 showtimes from 8:30am to 3AM.
The Snyder mashupis currently estimated to take a 35% decline on Saturday for $52.8M. That percent decline is on par withAvengers: Age of Ultron‘s second day. ComScore PostTrak audience gaveBvSa 73% grade in the very good/excellent boxes. Definite recommend rate to friends remains at a solid 60%. Looking at the family responses — it’s pretty damn good. Parents give BvS a very good/excellent score of 79% while kids under 12 grade it at 87%. Seventy-nine percent of all parents are spreading good WOM to their friends about Snyder’s movie while 75% of all the kids that watched it are telling their friends immediately about it. Boys made up most of the kid crowd at 60% with 45% between the ages of 10-12. Primary reasons why they showed up? 18% said it was because it was a superhero/comic book movie, 16% were Batman fans, while 9% came out for Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot.
Guess what’s in second place? Disney’s Zootopia,which is looking at an estimated $23.9M in its fourth frame, off 36%, elevating its cume by Sunday to $241.3M. That’s 6% ahead of where Pixar’s Finding Nemo was at the same point in time and 46% ahead of Disney original animated feature Frozen through its first 24 days.
Universal’s distribution of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2from Playtone/Gold Circle/HBO is now looking at a Friday of $7.7M, putting its opening at $19.1M in third place at 3,133 venues. Estimated production cost was $18M, which is 3.6 times more expensive than the 2002 movie. Audiences still love this fluffy movie 14 years later with an A- CinemaScore. It’s hard for some to find a comp for this. The first Greek Wedding wasn’t monitored by CinemaScore and studios don’t make sequels for blue hairs anymore (remember Grumpier Old Men?)
Lionsgate’s The Divergent Series: Allegiantfalls to fourth with an estimated $3.9M for Friday and a black eye -66% second weekend decline of $9.8M putting its 10-day at $46.9M. That’s steeper than the -59% second frame drop weathered byInsurgent a year ago when it came up against DreamWorks Animation’s Home and Warner Bros.’ Get Hard. Sony/Affirm’s Miracles From Heavenat 3,047 is a tad thinner than projected with a second sesh of $9.3M and a running cume of $34M in fifth place. Still the labels have something else to be happy about: their sword and sandal film Risenhas risen to 10th place with just under $1M and a six weekend total of $36M.
More good news for superhero movies this weekend: 20th Century Fox’s Deadpool by Sunday will be within $900K of overtaking Warner Bros.’ American Sniper as the second highest R-rated film at the domestic B.O. Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ still rules the adult record with $370.8M.
Weekend industry estimates as of 9:21PM for Easter weekend 2016, March 25-27:
PREVIOUS, 8 AM: Whatever war of words Warner Bros’ Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justicelost with critics with a 30% Rotten Tomatoes score, it’s making up for nine-fold at the box office. Last night,Zack Snyder’s Dark Knight and Son of Jor’El smackdown had a great Thursday at the B.O. reaping $27.7M, punching out the preview cash made by Disney/Marvel’s Age of Ultron ($27.6M from 7PM shows), Avengers ($18.7M, midnight) andIron Man 3($15.6M, 9PM) as well as Warner Bros. 2008 midnight shows fromDark Knight ($18.5M).
BvS Thursday night also drives Universal’s Furious 7’s $15.7M preview from a year ago off the record books, becoming the best pre-Easter preview.F7’sThursday repped 23% of its opening Good Friday figure of $67.4M. That number was the best pre-summer opening day before turning into the best April and Easter opening of all-time with $147.2M. DespiteBvS’ reviews, weekend projections continue to be in the$160M+ range. Advance ticket sales forBvS have been estimated to be between $20M-$25M; 60% of those polled by ComScore last night said they bought tickets ahead of time. Some believed that if the reviews had hit 60% rotten, that the pic’s FSS would surge to $175M, however, last night’s ticket sales indicate that the best is yet to come. Essentially, Friday could potentially generate over 90% additional ticket sales on top of last night’s results forBvS, when you consider that Avengers: Age of Ultron made 33% of its $84.4M first day from Thursday showtimes starting at 7PM, while Avengers grossed $18.7M or 23% of its $80.8M opening day from midnight previews.
According to ComScore PostTrak, which polls throughout the weekend, the word of mouth is great forBvS.Seventy-one percent of Thursday’s crowd gave BvS an excellent or very good grade. Even better news for Warner Bros. after those reviews: 60% of the audience said they would definitely recommendBvSto their friends while 33% said they’ll probably tell them about it. Older males were out in force (no surprise) at 69% guys, 57% over 25. Fifty-one percent saw it in 3D. Twenty-five percent said BvS exceeded their expectations while 60% said the film met their expectations.
Typically such superhero pics are critic-proof (Man of Steel‘s at 56% rotten wasn’t impeded by any negative ink posting a $116.6M opening). Star Wars: The Force Awakens threw the preview B.O. bar up to all-time high of $57M back in December, and among superhero movies, The Dark Knight Rises midnight shows best BvS’ Thursday with $30.6M. BvS Imax hubs, which repped 41% of the audience per ComScore, made $3.6M, the best pre-Easter for the format ever.
In its first day abroad, BvS grossed $7M, ranking N0. 1 in Wednesday markets Spain, Norway, France and Italy. In total,BvS will be in projecting at 35,000 screens around the world, with an eye at cracking a global debut of $350M+. We should be getting another update today.
Meanwhile Universal/Gold Circle/Playtone/HBO’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2stood as tall as it could during previews against BvS grossing $1.02M from 2,395 venues that started at 6PM. Many project a $15M opening for the sequel to the 2002 romantic comedy, which is $200K shy of the original’s 4-day Labor Day wide break as the pic was platformed for five months prior. Again, Uni, is playing similar chess moves at the B.O. as they did during Star Wars: The Force Awakens gargantuan weekend by going after women (and older folk) who have zero patience for BvS. MYBFGW2‘s Thursday night beats the $769K made by the R-rated Sisters.
Warner Bros. has a lot riding on the line withBvS. Above and beyond the estimated $400M pricetag (that includes P&A), the film is their chip at rebooting DC Comics features in the wake of Christoper Nolan’s successful $2.46B Dark Knighttrilogy and the God-awful Green Lantern($200M production cost, $219M global B.O.) which was a sour note in their extended universe superhero adaptations.
Easter used to be a meh time to launch a movie, but that’s changed. Dollar by dollar, year by year distributors have swelled Easter weekend to a new bar, proving that audiences aren’t holier than thou in their moviegoing, rather love to get out of the house during the holiday break. Weinstein/Dimension took the weekend to a new level with its $40.2M debut of Scary Movie 4 in 2006.Then Warner Bros. pulled out all the stops with its post-Avatar 3D breakthrough Clash of the Titans which debuted to $61.2M. Then Uni’s F7 blew the hinges off the bunny frame with a $147.1M FSS. Seventy-six percent of all K-12 schools are out today with another 45% out on Monday. Heck, Warners should just countBvS as a 4-day opening.
Outside BvS, Disney’s Zootopiatopped the Thursday B.O. with $4.5M raising its three week total to $217.5M, followed by Lionsgate’s The Divergent Series: Allegiantin second with $1.88M and a seven day cume of $37.1M.
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Quite often branded tentpoles are teflon to poor reviews, and, yes, BvS
Next, the WB marketing and PR team did a stellar job at keeping the want-to-see alive for
In regards to what went awry with
At the same time, critics might acknowledge the strides that Warner Bros. has made in elevating the Batman
When WB began launching its Batman films in 1989 via Tim Burton’s psychedelic goggles, Miller’s
BvS’ $27.7M Thursday reps 34% of its Friday figure, beating all superhero preview nights outside of The Dark Knight Rises’ midnight shows ($30.6M). Not only are Imax, RealD, 4DX drivers for BvS’ biz, but this film is projecting 41 times on Saturday at the Hollywood Arclight, with showtimes ranging from 8:30AM to 2:30AM. Meanwhile, over at the AMC Empire at 42nd Street in NYC,BvS boasts 53 showtimes from 8:30am to 3AM.
Guess what’s in second place? Disney’s Zootopia, which is looking at an estimated $23.9M in its fourth frame, off 36%, elevating its cume by Sunday to $241.3M. That’s 6% ahead of where Pixar’s Finding Nemo was at the same point in time and 46% ahead of Disney original animated feature Frozen through its first 24 days.
Universal’s distribution of 
Lionsgate’s The Divergent Series: Allegiant falls to fourth with an estimated $3.9M for Friday and a black eye -66% second weekend decline of $9.8M putting its 10-day at $46.9M. That’s steeper than the -59% second frame drop weathered by
BvS Thursday night also drives Universal’s Furious 7’s $15.7M preview from a year ago off the record books, becoming the best pre-Easter preview.
Easter used to be a meh time to launch a movie, but that’s changed. Dollar by dollar, year by year distributors have swelled Easter weekend to a new bar, proving that audiences aren’t holier than thou in their moviegoing, rather love to get out of the house during the holiday break. Weinstein/Dimension took the weekend to a new level with its $40.2M debut of Scary Movie 4 in 2006. Then Warner Bros. pulled out all the stops with its post-Avatar 3D breakthrough Clash of the Titans which debuted to $61.2M. Then Uni’s F7 blew the hinges off the bunny frame with a $147.1M FSS. Seventy-six percent of all K-12 schools are out today with another 45% out on Monday. Heck, Warners should just count