Weekend predictions: three-way race to top the chart

June 24, 2022

Elvis

A remarkable pile-up of films will top the box office chart this weekend, with five of them likely to earn more than $20 million over three days, and three in with a shot at coming out top. If it does happen, this would be the seventh time five films have earned over $20 million in a weekend. Life of Pi holds the record for the high-grossing fifth-placed film with $22.45 million over the weekend of November 23, 2012. That record looks in danger this weekend. But which of Elvis, Jurassic World: Dominion and Top Gun: Maverick does our model think will win the weekend? Read on to find out.

First up, here’s what our model thought of Elvis’s prospects before we had its preview numbers:

Baz Luhrmann has a mixed track record at the box office. His movies are memorable, for sure, but divide critics and audiences. Likewise biographical dramas about musicians and music groups. With a high degree of uncertainty, the model thought Elvis should open with around $31.3 million under “usual” conditions. The film has been getting a lot of buzz in the past few weeks though, and the model’s final prediction adds a bit to that, with $33 million expected before we had the preview numbers.

Its $3.5 million in previews are pretty much in line with original expectations:

Again, there’s quite a lot of variation in the outcome for drama films in the ratio between their previews and their opening weekend box office. They tend not to be as front-loaded as some other genres, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Elvis do more than 10 times its previews over opening weekend. The weighted average of the fundamentals prediction and the previews prediction is $36.3 million.

The Black Phone isn’t expected to top the chart this weekend, but it is getting good reviews and is from Blumhouse, which never does any harm to a film’s chance of earning money. Our model pegs its expected opening at around $17 million before we had preview numbers.

The previews suggest it could do quite a bit better than that:

As usual, our final prediction is a weighted average of the fundamentals and preview predictions, which in this case lands at $25.9 million. That sort of performance has frequently been enough to land a film at the top of the chart in the post-pandemic era. This weekend, it probably won’t be enough for a spot in the top three.

Here’s how our model thinks the top 10 will work out…

Based on its run so far, Jurassic World: Dominion is the favorite to win the weekend, with a decline of 35% expected to take it to $38.4 million this weekend. That’s a rounding error away from Elvis in second place, which is in turn a rounding error ahead of Top Gun: Maverick’s predicted $32-million weekend. In short, Dominion goes into the weekend as a marginal favorite, but any one of those three films could end up winning the weekend.

Given that Maverick was the top movie in North America on Thursday, I’m inclined to believe it will outperform our model this weekend and has a good chance of topping the chart. Elvis is also doing well enough to have a good chance of landing at number one. The model might be harsh on Lightyear too, given the historical performance of Pixar movies. It doesn’t look likely to challenge at the top, but it could break the record as the highest-grossing movie in fifth place ever.

This looks like a weekend that will go down to the wire.

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis, Jurassic World: Dominion, Lightyear, The Black Phone, Baz Luhrmann