Weekend predictions: Nope targets $50-million debut

July 22, 2022

Nope

Nope is an all-too-rare example of a big-budget, completely original, ultra-wide release, and it looks as though Universal will be rewarded with a strong opening weekend for Jordan Peele’s sci-fi horror movie. With strong numbers from Thursday previews, it looks like the film could hit $50 million on debut.

Here’s what our model thought before we had those Thursday numbers…

Of course, Jordan Peele is a brand unto himself now, and, much like M. Night Shyamalan or Christoper Nolan, it’s his name that appears at the top of the movie posters and is featured in the marketing. Unlike those other two marquee names, Peele has just written and directed two films so far, which means the model doesn’t actually have a lot of data to go on with respect to his track record. The fact that Us opened with more than twice the opening weekend of Get Out further challenges the task of making an accurate prediction.

Once those two films are combined with other horror movies from Universal, and the model adjusts for an opening in an impressive 3,785 theaters, it comes up with an expected opening of $42 million under normal conditions. Our pandemic adjustment figure is now at an all-time high of 77%, and that and our audience tracking adjustment more or less cancel on another out, leaving an expected opening around $40 million.

The preview numbers for Nope look encouraging. Again, there are some challenges in finding good comps, but the model ends up predicting a weekend that will almost certainly be somewhere between $40 million and $60 million, with $50 million looking very much on the cards. After adjusting for the fundamentals prediction, the model’s final prediction for the weekend comes in at $48.7 million. Given the originality of the film, that's a very solid start. Good word of mouth and a lack of competition could give it a good run in theaters.

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

The arrival of Nope might mean we’ll have an “up” weekend at the box office, although that will depend heavily on the performance of other films. The model thinks the other films in the top 4 should all decline less than 30% this weekend, which seems a little optimistic to me, particularly the 28% decline for Thor: Love and Thunder.

The other film to look out for is Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which should hit the top 10 again as it expands into approximately 600 theaters. This is a difficult film to predict, and this weekend will be a big clue as to its long-term prospects.

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Thor: Love and Thunder, Nope, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Christopher Nolan, M. Night Shyamalan, Jordan Peele