Weekend predictions: Bullet Train shooting for $30-million opening

August 5, 2022

Two new wide releases hit theaters this weekend, each looking to find what might be described as a “big niche” audience. Bullet Train is looking to draw in fans of high-speed action, while Easter Sunday is the kind of family comedy that we’ve hardly seen in the last couple of years. With this Summer’s blockbusters beginning to play out, both of the new entrants could find a decent crowd, although Bullet Train will end up topping the chart and has already booked $4.6 million from Thursday previews.

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

Bullet Train will be the widest release of Brad Pitt’s career, including films where he has played a supporting role. That’s a remarkable stat when you think about it, given how long and lucrative his history at the box office is, and it probably is the result of the lack of competition for theater space at the moment. With the studios releasing fewer films at the moment, and a remarkable number of movie houses having survived the pandemic, a non-tentpole film like Bullet Train is finding it much easier to get into a lot of theaters.

That lack of competition can only help the film, but our model wasn’t hugely optimistic about its chances, pegging its expected opening around $22 million based on fundamentals. We’ve measured a lot more buzz around the film than that, and it’s getting the biggest “buzz adjustment” for any film since we introduced that new feature into the model earlier this Summer.

Those $4.6 million in previews go a long way to justifying that adjustment for audience interest…

There’s virtually no difference between the fundamentals and previews predictions for Bullet Train, and the model’s final prediction sits at $33.5 million.

The second wide release of the weekend has slightly more modest goals.

Jo Koy’s family comedy is a welcome return for the traditional family comedy, a genre of film that we’ve hardly seen in the last couple of years. It’s not a genre that produces consistently great results, but something over $10 million would be a reasonable expectation pre-pandemic. With few films to measure post-pandemic, the model thought an opening weekend around $13 million was on the cards. Audience buzz has been much lower, however, and this film actually has the lowest buzz adjustment we’ve ever seen, halving the prediction to $6.4 million.

Thursday’s preview numbers are a little more optimistic at first glance…

The big caveat with this $8.7-million, post-previews prediction is that all the comparable films were release prior to the pandemic. We’ve seen fairly consistently worse preview multipliers since the pandemic, so this might be an overly rosy assessment. In general, preview numbers aren’t hugely predictive for family films anyway (note that the multipliers range from about 10 to over 30), so the previews prediction is fairly speculative too.

Taking the weighted average of the two predictions gives a final expected opening weekend of $8.11 million for Easter Sunday. There’s quite a bit of uncertainty around that number, and I think anything over $6 million should be chalked up as a good result for the film.

Here’s what our model thinks about that top 10 as of Friday morning…

Bullet Train should win the weekend easily, with Nope favored to stay in second place by leap-frogging DC League of Super Pets.

Overall, we could see a slight uptick in total box office from last weekend, although that’s dependent on Bullet Train continuing its strong form, and Easter Sunday at least coming close to its predicted figure.

Bruce Nash

Filed under: Weekend Preview, DC League of Super Pets, Nope, Bullet Train, Easter Sunday, Brad Pitt, Jo Koy