September 24th, 2021
Dear Evan Hansen will be taking a long-shot swing at unseating Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings from the top of the chart this weekend. Our model, and the movie’s preview numbers, suggest it’ll fall some way short, giving the Marvel action movie a fourth straight weekend at the top of the chart. That’s the longest continuous run at the top since Tenet dominated the pandemic-ravaged chart in September last year (The Croods: A New Age also spent five weeks at number one, split between December and February, but didn’t have four straight weekends at the top). The limited number of major new releases since Shang-Chi came out is significantly hitting the market as a whole, and this will be the slowest weekend at the box office since Spiral’s $4.6-million second weekend was enough to give it a weekend win back on May 21.
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July 18th, 2021
Families returned to movie theaters in a big way this weekend, and helped propel Space Jam: A New Legacy to a strong $31.65 million opening, according to Warner Bros.’ Sunday-morning projection. With Escape Room: Tournament of Champions also beating our model’s prediction, the newcomers made up for soft results for returning films.
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April 11th, 2021
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After last weekend’s relatively excellent opening for Godzilla vs. Kong, the theatrical market is treading water this time around, based on the studios’ Sunday morning estimates. GvK itself is performing a little worse than expected, although not terribly considering its coming off the biggest weekend of the pandemic. Voyagers will earn a disappointing $1.35 million opening, and the returning films are something of a mixed bag.
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March 14th, 2021
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A solid second-week performance will be enough to keep Raya and the Last Dragon at the top of the box office chart this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday morning. Its strength contributed to unusually large declines for the movies competing with it for family audiences, but generally it looks as though this weekend will continue the modest growth trend in the theatrical market.
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March 7th, 2021
Raya and the Last Dragon will top the box office chart on its debut weekend with about $8.6 million according to Disney’s Sunday morning projection. While that’s 13% below our model’s $9.87 million prediction, and well behind the $14.11 million earned by Tom and Jerry last weekend, it’s a decent performance for the pandemic era, and some of the other results this weekend point towards a market that’s inching back towards recovery.
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March 5th, 2021
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After an excellent opening for Tom and Jerry last weekend, all eyes turn to Raya and the Last Dragon. With theaters reopening in New York and San Francisco, the movie’s Disney Animation pedigree and 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a stronger market for family films than other fare during the pandemic, this seems like a film that could continue the process of rebuilding momentum at the box office. A simultaneous release on Disney+ could put the brakes on though, and our model isn’t convinced it’s set for box office glory.
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February 28th, 2021
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Tom and Jerry is enjoying the best weekend of 2021 so far, and the third-best of the pandemic era, according to Warner Bros.’ projections released on Sunday mornings. Its $13.71 million opening is a far cry from the $40 million to $50 million it might have earned before the pandemic, but it confirms something we’ve suspected since the stronger-than-expected openings of The War with Grandpa and The Croods: A New Age: family movies are performing much better during the pandemic than other types of film…
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February 26th, 2021
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Warner Bros. wraps up January with what should be the biggest release of the year so far. Under normal circumstances, Tom and Jerry would be looking for an opening weekend somewhere close to the $58 million enjoyed by Sonic the Hedgehog this time last year. Our model says $46 million would be par for the course for a film like this. But, even though there are some signs of improvement in the theatrical market, pandemic-related restrictions and the reluctance of audiences to return to theaters means the movie won’t see anything close to that level of business this weekend.
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February 21st, 2021
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The Croods: A New Age will, as expected, finish top at the box office this weekend. In doing so, it becomes the first film in the 21st century to top the chart in its 13th weekend in release. The last film to achieve the feat was Titanic back in 1998. Titanic went on to win 15 weekends during its incredible first run. If A New Age surpassed that number, we’d have to look back to ET’s run in 1982 for something comparable. That film had 16 weekend wins spread through the second half of the year, including the weekend after Thanksgiving—its 26th in release.
Interesting as these stats may be to the connoisseur of box office records, Croods was down 18% from last weekend, which is a slight disappointment, although there is some potentially good news lurking when we look at the complete set of weekend estimates…
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February 19th, 2021
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With no new releases this weekend, the race for number one at the box office comes down to which film among the top three last weekend has the best legs. The overwhelmingly likely answer to that question is The Croods: A New Age, which enters its lucky 13th week in release doing almost exactly the same business as it was two months ago. The only unknown is how well Judas and the Black Messiah will do in its second weekend.
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February 14th, 2021
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The combination of a long weekend and a very tight race means it’s hard to say who’s winning at the box office this weekend. Universal is claiming bragging rights, with a $2.04 million three-day estimates for The Croods: A New Age. It is set to earn around $2.66 million including Monday’s holiday gross. Warner Bros. is projecting $2.0 million over three days and $2.4 million for the long weekend for both its new release Judas and the Black Messiah and the returning The Little Things. (The studio didn’t originally announce a three-day number for The Little Things, but just confirmed that $2.0 million figure with us.)
Outside of this minor intrigue at the top of the chart, this week’s estimates contain some promising news…
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February 12th, 2021
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The welcome arrival of two new wide releases and the combination of Valentine’s Day on Sunday and President’s Day on Monday should cause an uptick at the box office this weekend. Judas and the Black Messiah is the film most likely to top the chart, according to our model, while Land is set for a more modest result but should make it into the top six.
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February 7th, 2021
Today’s Super Bowl might be causing some caution among the studios as they compile their weekend projections, but whichever way you cut it, we’re looking at another slow weekend in theaters. The Little Things will come out on top with around $2.1 million, according to Warner Bros.. That’s down a steep 56% from its opening weekend, and 9% below our model’s prediction. In general, almost all films are falling a little shy of the model’s numbers, suggesting that we’re still not seeing real growth in the market.
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February 5th, 2021
With no new wide releases, there can really be only one winner at the box office this weekend. Last week’s champ, The Little Things earned more than twice as much as second-place The Croods: A New Age last weekend, and will stay top even with a steep drop.
The performance of The Croods, which is a bellweather for the strength of the theatrical market as a whole, is probably of more interest this weekend.
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January 31st, 2021
Although it will fall a little short of our weekend prediction, The Little Things will post a respectable-under-the-circumstances $4.8 million this weekend, according to Warner Bros.’ Sunday morning projection. If there wasn’t a pandemic going on, that would translate into something like a $21 million debut—in line with previous outings for Denzel Washington in action films and thrillers, such as Unstoppable ($22.7 million opening) and The Taking of Pelham 123 ($23.4 million opening), although behind the more recent The Equalizer, which started out with $34 million. It gives The Little Things bragging rights to the best opening of 2021, which everyone in the industry will be praying is a title it won’t hold for very long.
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January 29th, 2021
This weekend’s release of The Little Things continues Warner Bros.’ strategy of launching major films simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max, following the Christmastime launch of Wonder Woman 1984. The studio can argue that its experiment has paid off so far, with Wonder Woman posting a decent opening, given the state of the pandemic, and also driving new subscribers to the service. Little Things will be more of test though, since it’s not a major franchise release and isn’t high on the list of most-anticipated movies of the year.
It does, however, come with an impeccable pedigree, and our model is quite enthusiastic about its chances.
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January 24th, 2021
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The Marksman will remain at the top of the box office chart this weekend with a decent 35% decline from its opening according to Open Road’s Sunday morning projection. The Croods: A New Age will fall just 9% from last weekend to finish second. Wonder Woman 1984 (which our model forecast would regain top spot) is set to fall 38% this weekend to $1.6 million for a total of $37.7 million to date.
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January 22nd, 2021
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The box office race is overshadowed this weekend by a barrage of release date changes precipitated by the continued terrible situation with the pandemic across North America and a growing acceptance that movie theaters won’t all be open and operating under normal conditions for quite a while. The first domino to fall was No Time to Die, which has moved from April 2 to October 8. Our release schedule changes page has the gory details of all the changes announced by studios in the aftermath. The consensus seems to be that major releases definitely won’t be viable as theatrical-only releases until late April or early May, and the big guns are mostly settling in to the October through December timeframe. It might be a while before we see a tentpole come to theaters that isn’t also being quickly or simultaneously released for the home market, either on a streaming platform or as a PVOD release.
All that adds up to long theatrical runs by default for the films currently at the top of the box office chart. Here’s what our model thinks of them this weekend.
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January 17th, 2021
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The Marksman will win the battle at the top of the box office chart this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday. The action thriller is projected to earn $3.225 million over the three-day part of the weekend, and Open Road expects it to add another $480,000 tomorrow for a four-day opening of $3,705,000. Its debut is comfortably ahead of our Friday prediction, but a little behind Honest Thief, which earned $3.6 million over its three-day opening weekend back in October. The decline is most likely a reflection of the worsening pandemic conditions over the past few months, but Open Road shared some interesting demographic details that shed more light on how the market is evolving at the moment.
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January 10th, 2021
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Wonder Woman 1984 will easily top the box office chart again this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday morning, but it will fall 45% from last weekend. That’s a significantly larger decline than the rest of the films in the top 12, and The Croods: A New Age will overtake it in a couple of weeks if this trend continues. Wonder Woman’s total will stand at $32.6 million after today, compared to Croods’ $36.9 million, so there’s a strong probability that the two films will end up roughly tied at the domestic box office.
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January 8th, 2021
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The theatrical market has everything working against it this weekend: a pandemic at its peak, a national constitutional crisis, and no new wide releases. All happening on what’s traditionally one of the slower weekends of the year. We’re not quite going to return to the lowest ebb in business since theaters started to reopen, according to our model, but it looks as though we might come close.
Here’s what our latest analysis run says about likely business this weekend.
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January 3rd, 2021
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Wonder Woman 1984 will remain top at the box office this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday morning, but it’ll do so in spite of a sharp fall from its opening weekend. Warner Bros. projects a $5.5-million weekend for the super hero pic, down 67% from last weekend. That’s not a huge fall for a film like this by historical standards, but it is a surprisingly-sharp decline for the New Year weekend, and considerably worse than any other film reporting, many of which increased their box office from Christmas weekend.
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December 20th, 2020
As expected, Monster Hunter will top the domestic chart this weekend, but the big news is Wonder Woman 1984’s global launch to $38.5 million from 30,221 screens in 32 markets.
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December 13th, 2020
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The Croods: A New Age continues to dominate at the box office (relatively speaking) this weekend, with Universal projecting a weekend box office of $3.01 million for a total of $24.26 million to date. Half Brothers is outperforming expectations in second place with a projected $490,000 sophomore weekend, down just 30% from its last outing.
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December 11th, 2020
In this week’s prediction column, we could focus on the wreckage of the current theatrical market, or look ahead to better times to come. Let’s look ahead, shall we?
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December 6th, 2020
The Croods: A New Age will remain top at the box office this weekend, with Universal projecting a $4.4-million weekend as of Sunday morning. That will take the animated adventure past $20 million in total by the end of the day today. That fact pales in comparison to bad news regarding the continued decline in box office receipts. Returning films are falling 12% to 25% short of our model’s pre-weekend predictions. Part of that is down to the post-Thanksgiving decline that’s to be expected, but the continued toll of the pandemic is further dragging on spending. Perhaps the glimmer of good news is that more people are heeding experts’ advice and watching their movies at home.
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December 4th, 2020
If 2020 has taught us anything it’s that nothing is certain in life. But one thing we can be fairly confident about this weekend is that The Croods: A New Age will remain top at the box office. Universal’s animated adventure does have some new competition. In fact, there are three new wide releases: Half Brothers (in 1,369 theaters), a re-release of Die Hard (1,172 theaters), and romantic drama All My Life. But those three films combined are unlikely to challenge Croods, and individually they are likely to be far behind it.
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November 5th, 2020
The country might be distracted by a drawn-out election right now, but the movie business soldiers on this month, even though recovery from the pandemic looks as far away as ever. While theatrical grosses remain tiny, Universal is currently planning to try its luck with three new wide releases, two from the studio itself and one from its specialty division Focus Features.
At least, that’s their current plan. Two of the films seem certain to roll out, but their Thanksgiving release of The Croods: A New Age has to come with an asterisk attached. Perhaps this release will be an olive branch to theater operators after the studio caused controversy in March by pulling Trolls World Tour from theaters and sending it direct to PVOD. Universal is maybe taking this opportunity to look they’re supporting the theatrical business, and their case is made more convincing by the fact that every other major studio is sitting out November. Even looking beyond the end of the month, 20th Century Studios is the only other distributor that looks like it’ll have a wide release between now and Christmas, with Free Guy on December 11 and Death on the Nile on December 18. (Universal has another film, All My Life slated for December 4.)
If Universal sticks to its plans, and a couple of other expected changes (Coming 2 America going direct to Amazon Prime, and Wonder Woman 1984 getting pushed back again) happen, it’ll be the only studio offering real support to the theatrical business between now and the end of the year. Maybe everyone will let bygones be bygones, and we can at least point to that as a ray of hope for the industry going in Holiday Season.
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September 23rd, 2020
Animated adventure is scheduled to open in theaters on November 25. Full movie details.
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