It may only be March, but the weekends are already starting to get pretty darn stacked. This weekend alone we have Power Rangers set to go head to head against Beauty and the Beast, and the weekend following will see the manga adaptation Ghost in the Shell joining the fray. As such, it’s a bit difficult to predict just how these movies will be doing, and how much they will be cannibalizing each other’s box office revenue in weeks to come. So how is newcomer Power Rangers faring against the big, bad Beast?

Early numbers are in for Thursday receipts, and it looks like Power Rangers is off to a strong start, with Thursday numbers coming in at around $3.6 million. This is just a hair lower than Kong: Skull Island, which brought in $3.7 million in its Thursday previews.

So what does this mean in terms of the entirety of the weekend? The film is currently tracking to take in $30-$40 million domestically. It’s a bit of a conservative measurement, but it does fall in line with what our very own Edward Douglas predicted in his Weekend Warrior column.

Click here to see why Ed has Power Rangers pegged at $33 million for the weekend

In this day and age of big $100 million-plus openers, a modest $30-$40 million could seem like quite the disappointment. Luckily for Power Rangers, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Unlike many big films, Power Rangers had a relatively modest budget of around $100 million. Sure, those are still big numbers, but they pale in comparison to Beauty and the Beast’s and Kong: Skull Island’s respective budgets of $160 million and $185 million.

Add in the potential appeal of Power Rangers overseas, and you have something that could really do well for itself on the worldwide level.

Another factor we have to take into consideration is its reception. Critic-wise, the reception seems to be split, with the Rotten Tomatoes score sitting in the low 40s as of this writing. However, while critical reception is mixed, the word of mouth from moviegoers seems to be on the positive side, with fans really appreciating the surprisingly loyal take on this mythology.

We’ll have to wait another day or two before we see how it all shakes out. No matter what way you look at it, the prospect of Power Rangers outperforming Beauty and the Beast seems like an unlikely one at best, with the latter film looking to take around $76 million in its second weekend. Regardless of how Power Rangers measures up to the competition, this writer will be quite surprised if the film doesn’t do well enough to warrant a sequel.

Power Rangers is in theaters now!

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SOURCE: Box Office Mojo