• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

With "F1: The Movie," Apple’s Original Films unit scored its first big commercial hit as a theatrical film producer -- pulling in $55 million domestically and $88.4 million internationally, per IMDb’s Box Office Mojo -- way ahead of analysts' expectations.

As the film’s producer, Apple got major help from Warner Bros. Pictures’ distribution and marketing business.

The movie bested earlier Apple-produced movie debuts of "Killers of the Flower Moon" (2023) with an opening of $34 million and "Napoleon" (also in 2023), which came in at $30.8 million.

While some analysts are deeming it a major success, others say the high production/marketing costs -- of around $200 million -- should factor into final results.

EDO Ad EnGage estimates Warner Bros. spent a modest $15.48 million in national TV advertising -- with 4,510 airings, resulting in 1.97 billion impressions. Top spending on programs for the entire campaign include the "2025 NBA Finals" (ABC), NBA Basketball (TNT), and the 2025 Daytona 500 (Fox).

"F1" easily bested three other competitors for the weekend: Universal Picture’s “How To Train Your Dragon” (in its third week of release) at $19.4 million, Walt Disney’s “Elio” (in its second week) at $10.7 million and Universal’s “M3GAN 2.0” (with a $10.2 million debut).

This edition of “M3GAN, the second in the action/horror franchise, far underdelivered the initial 2022 movie, which posted a $30.4 million opening -- ending up with $180.1 million globally and $95.2 million domestically.

National TV spend for “M3GAN 2.0” was at $10.8 million and for the December 28, 2022 release overall TV spend was at $7.7 million.