Weekend predictions: Wonka favorite for another weekend win

January 5, 2024

Wonka

Wonka looks likely to top the box office chart for the third time this weekend, thanks to another strong hold and a mediocre opening for Blumhouse’s Night Swim. The legacy of the New Year still hangs over predictions this weekend, making it hard to be sure where everything will land, and Night Swim still has a shot at making it to the top, as well as no less than four returning films that have some theoretical chance of topping the chart. What we can say for sure is that we’re heading into a slow period at the box office.

Before we get to those predictions for returning movies, here’s what the model’s baseline for Night Swim looked like:

Blumhouse is no stranger to launching successful films at the beginning of the year, and they did so this weekend in 2023 with M3GAN, which debuted with $30.4 million (equivalent to $44.7 million in pre-pandemic dollars, according to the model). Even with the market looking weak coming off the Holidays, a weekend in the high teens looked achievable.

The preview numbers don’t look quite as good as that:

PG-13-rated horror movies and thrillers tend to earn around 10 times their previews over opening weekend, and so $1.45 million in earnings on Thursday points to a weekend around $15 million overall. Once put through our model, we end up with a predicted opening weekend of $13.4 million. The rumors are that it might come in a little below that, but over $10 million seems like a good bet. That’s a poor result by Blumhouse’s standards, but not a disaster.

Here’s what the model thinks that top 10 will look like.

Wonka looks likely to squeak past Night Swim, even though it’ll dip appreciably now we’re past the Holidays. The model might be a little conservative in its prediction for Wonka and optimistic for Night Swim, so the gap could well be larger. It wouldn’t take much for Night Swim edge out the musical though.

The next three films all technically have a chance of topping the chart this weekend, in the sense that they could do so while staying within the margin of error for our model. The one to look out for is Anyone But You, which has had spectacular holds all through this week. While every other film in the top 10 yesterday was down at least 45% from last Thursday, Anyone But You was off only 29%. Since finishing seventh on Christmas Day, the raunchy romantic comedy has moved up to third place on the chart. A really good weekend could take it to top spot, but most likely it’ll be battling with Aquaman and Migration for third. Its $34.2-million haul so far already makes it the second-highest-grossing romantic comedy since the pandemic, behind Ticket to Paradise, which ended with $68.3 million. Anyone But You is now well ahead of Ticket to Paradise each day on the day-to-day comparison between the two films, and could well take the post-pandemic crown when all is said and done.

The other film to take note of is The Color Purple, which has descended rapidly since it opened on Christmas Day. The model thinks it’ll fall over 60% this weekend, comfortably the worst performance of any film in the top 10. MLK weekend should help it, but its day-to-day performance has been exceptionally weak for a musical.

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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Migration, The Color Purple, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Wonka, Night Swim, Anyone But You