Box Office: Mel Gibson's 'Flight Risk' Leads Quiet Weekend With ...

The Mel Gibson-directed Flight Risk is flying to an $11 million to $12 million opening at the domestic box office, according to Friday returns. If those estimates hold, the action-thriller film will come in on the higer end of expectations, or even ahead.

It’s the first film Gibson — whom Trump has named one of his ambassadors to Hollywood — has directed since 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge.

From Lionsgate, Flight Risk stars Mark Wahlberg as a pilot transporting an Air Marshal (Michelle Dockery) accompanying a mob-connected witness (Topher Grace) to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem — including the pilot.

Reviewers haven’t taken to the modestly budgeted movie. Ditto for audiences, which slapped it with a C CinemaScore.

While noting that it does provide some thrills, THR reviewer Frank Scheck writes, “its clunky dialogue, uneven performances and less-than-grade-A special effects ultimately make it the Spirit Airlines of airborne thrillers.”

Sony and TriStar’s female-fronted comedy One of Them Days, now in its second weekend, and Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King are, now in its sixth, are in a close battle for No. 2 with $7 million to $8 million. Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3, also in its sixth weekend, is likewise holding in and is expected to take in another $5.1 million to place forth.

There’s also a close race brewing between new Stephen Soderbergh’s haunted horror-thriller Presence and Disney’s Thanksgiving animated blockbuster Moana 2 for fifth place with around $3 million each.

Soderbergh’s new specialty film has been praised by critics, while audiences only gave it a C+ (horror-themed pics can often receive a C grade).

Filmed in a single setting, Presence stars Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan and newcomer Callina Liang star in this haunted house chiller about a family that appears on the brink of falling apart.

Numbers will be updated Sunday morning, along with a full top 10 and specialty box office report.