One Battle After Another Crushes Box Office, Outshining Leonardo DiCaprio's Most Acclaimed Films
Warner Bros Pictures’ action thriller One Battle After Another is already outpacing Leonardo DiCaprio’s other acclaimed releases in early previews. With a reported $130-140 million budget and Paul Thomas Anderson at the helm, the star-studded film is shaping up as a box-office juggernaut.
Leonardo DiCaprio is back on the big screen, and the early numbers say audiences are curious. Warner Bros. rolled out Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, the action-thriller 'One Battle After Another,' and the previews landed higher than you might expect for a PTA movie. Especially one that reportedly cost in the $130–140 million range. Yes, PTA went big-budget action-thriller. That alone is a twist.
Early box office check-in
- Previews pulled in $3.1 million, per Deadline. That tops the preview takes of DiCaprio's 'Killers of the Flower Moon' ($2.6 million in 2023) and 'The Revenant' ($2.3 million in 2015).
- Opening weekend is tracking in the $20–25 million range. That puts it roughly in line with 'Killers of the Flower Moon,' but well below 'The Revenant,' which opened to $39.8 million.
- Warner Bros. is said to have spent about $130–140 million on this star-packed release.
So: stronger previews than DiCaprio's recent prestige plays, but unless the weekend overperforms, it will not be a 'Revenant'-sized launch. Inside baseball note: preview comps can be quirky, but beating those two titles out of the gate is still a talking point.
Who is behind it
'One Battle After Another' is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and produced by Anderson, Sara Murphy, and Adam Somner. Jonny Greenwood is back doing the score. The cast is deep: DiCaprio leads, with Academy Award winners in the mix, including Sean Penn ('Milk'), plus Regina Hall ('Girls Trip,' 'O'Dessa'), Alana Haim ('Licorice Pizza'), Teyana Taylor ('A Thousand and One'), Wood Harris ('Remember the Titans'), Benicio del Toro ('Sicario,' 'The French Dispatch'), D.W. Moffett ('Traffic'), Chase Infiniti ('Presumed Innocent'), John Hoogenakker ('Dopesick'), and more.
The book connection (and why that is interesting)
The film is inspired by Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel 'Vineland.' If that name rings a bell in PTA-land, it should: this is the second time Anderson has gone to Pynchon after 2014's 'Inherent Vice.' The 'Vineland' novel is set in the 1980s and digs into culture clashes during the Reagan era. PTA adapting Pynchon again, but through an action-thriller lens at this scale, is not exactly business as usual. That is part of the fun here.
Bottom line: the preview pop is real, the opening forecast is cautious, and if word of mouth hits, this could leg out. We will see if the early buzz translates once the full weekend numbers land.