Crowds are tossing metaphorical bananas at Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man. That’s a good thing; monkeys like bananas, remember? After its roaring premiere at SXSW last month, the Jordan Peele-produced thriller is heading towards a $10 million opening, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Pretty good, considering the movie’s budget was about the same and it was almost canned by Netflix. Peele’s Monkey Paw Productions picked up the movie sometime in 2023 after Netflix reportedly began shopping it around. It received a theatrical release under his Universal Pictures deal as Peele explained the movie deserved to be seen on “a big-screen. ” Its opening weekend was originally estimated to earn about $3-4 million more and has taken second place against Godzilla x Kong’s reign. But the weekend is still young, and the hype is strong with this one, even if it’s the second chimp at the box office.
