Earlier this year, the movie season kicked off with Deadpool, an R-rated superhero film that no one thought would do well but ended up making $754.5 million. Now we have Sausage Party, an R-rated animated comedy that just might follow in Deadpool's footsteps. Sausage Party premiered in theaters Thursday night, and the film is already performing higher than most people expected.
According to Deadline, Sausage Party opened on Thursday night with a total of $3.25 million. That's a pretty high sum for comedies. Compare that to other Seth Rogen comedies like this year's Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising ($1.67M) and other similar raunchy comedies like Ted 2 ($2.6M) and Trainwreck ($1.8M). One would think that this is a sign for an appetizing weekend, but analysts say there is no correlation between Thursday premieres and weekend earnings. Some are saying that Sausage Party is looking to earn about $20 million in the face of Warner Bros. record-breaking August juggernaut, Suicide Squad. The comic book movie is projected to make $51-$54 million this weekend.
Don't see that $20 million as a failure, though. It's a rare sight to see any genre go toe to toe with a superhero blockbuster these days. Plus, Sausage Party is doing well in other important areas. The food comedy generated a lot of early buzz thanks to screenings at SXSW and some seriously funny red band trailers. Sausage Party has also been looked at favorably by critics (more than Suicide Squad at any rate) and currently has an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This could potentially give it plenty of good word of mouth to gain some legs for the closing weeks of summer.
In addition to the positive critical reception, the Rogen comedy is also doing well with audiences. A film about talking groceries getting horrifically murdered seems to have really resonated with millennial brains and Sausage Party has generated a lot of chatter on social media. RelishMix claims that fans are hitting each other up to see the movie in theaters, while others are already quoting lines from the trailers. Apparently, Seth Rogen, James Franco, and Jonah Hill (all actors in the movie) can reach a combined social audience of about 40 million. The movies darkly funny trailers have also generated millions of views on Youtube. One trailer has about 20.4 million views, while the Sausage Party Playlist has a total of 11.7 million clicks. Check out one of the most popular clips below.
Sausage Party is directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon and is out in theaters this weekend, making you really sad about how hungry you are.
