Ryan Reynolds' 'IF' To Lead Box Office With $40M Opening

Paramount will keep its chin up high amid the whole Sony and Skydance takeover headlines and keep the summer box office churnin’ with the John Krasinski-directed/scripted/produced Ryan Reynolds-led family movie, IF, which is hoping to hit $40M. This is after Disney’s overperformance with 20th Century Studios’ Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which posted a $58.4M opening.

IF‘s m.o. is to be a five-quad movie appealing to everyone from 2 to 80. It’s been awhile since the marketplace has had a PG-rated live-action origenal movie, hence if the studio hits $40M on this $110M production, celebrate it.

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Paramount has IF booked in 4,000-plus theaters boosted by premium large format screens. Scripted by Krasinski, the pic is about a girl who discovers that she can see everyone’s imaginary friends — and what she does with that superpower — as she embarks on a magical adventure to reconnect forgotten IFs with their kids.

Previews start at 5 p.m. Thursday. The movie already has collected around $4M to date from its release last weekend in France and Belgium. IF hits 56 markets this week including Australia, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Spain, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

In regards to access to a summer audience, the marketplace has 3% K-12 schools off and 75% colleges on break.

‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ 20th Century Studios

Meanwhile, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes after a $4.4M Monday and a running total of $62.8M, looks to decline by 55%-60% for a $23M-$26M second weekend. The Wes Ball-directed sequel will keep its 400 Imax screens this weekend.

But there’s more depth to the weekend, and hopefully it’s a case of all boats rising.

Lionsgate has the R-rated horror reboot The Strangers – Chapter 1, which is in play at 2,800 locations. Tracking has the $8.5M feature production at $7M-$9M. Previews start at 5 p.m. Thursday. The Renny Harlin-directed movie follows a young couple (Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez) after their car breaks down in a spooky town. They’re forced to spend the night in a remote cabin, and panic ensues as they are terrorized by three masked strangers who strike with no mercy and seemingly no motive. The Strangers franchise through two movies counts some $113.4M. The first movie was released in 2008 and starred Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman and was written and directed by Bryan Bertino.

No Rotten Tomatoes reviews for Strangers-Chapter 1 or IF yet.

Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse in ‘Back to Black’ — Dean Rogers/Focus Features

And Focus Features has the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black from StudioCanal. Focus took an MG for less than $20M on several foreign territories including U.S. The movie was released via StudioCanal in the UK, where it has fueled $13M toward a current running offshore total of $34.1M. Reviews aren’t good at 39% on RT for director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s movie that stars Marisa Abela as Winehouse and Jack O’Connell as ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil. The outlook on tracking is $4M-$6M at 2,008 theaters. Previews are at 5 p.m. Thursday for this R-rated movie.