Weekend estimates: West Side Story shows some legs with $10.5-million weekend win

December 12th, 2021

As I said on Friday, the measure of success for West Side Story is not so much how it opens as how strong its legs are. Based on its performance through this weekend, there’s cause for some mild optimism. Ahead of the weekend, our model expected an opening around $6.9 million, based on its debut in a relatively modest 2,820 theaters and current market conditions. Its $800,000 in preview earnings suggested a weekend close to $10 million was on the cards, and bumped the model’s prediction up to $8.27 million. This morning Disney announced a projected $10.5 million for the film over its opening weekend. While that’s hardly a reason for dancing in the streets, it does suggest the film will play well for a while. More...

Weekend estimates: Shang-Chi enjoys fourth (and last) weekend win, Dune holds well internationally

September 26th, 2021

As expected, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will remain at the top of the domestic box office chart this weekend, although its fourth-weekend decline of 39% is larger than expected. Dear Evan Hansen will post a decent $7.5-million opening in second place, and is getting good reviews from its target audience. Internationally, Dune is making waves, with strong holds in several territories continuing its strong start. More...

Weekend predictions: Shang-Chi still rules as industry braces for worst weekend since May

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. More...

Weekend estimates: Shang-Chi dominates at home, Dune hits it big internationally

September 19th, 2021

With this weekend’s two new wide releases both failing to find an audience, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will cruise to victory again at the domestic box office. The Marvel movie will rack up another $21.7 million, taking it to $176.9 million in total in North America. With a new total of $143.7 million internationally, it now has $320.6 million worldwide. Several international markets are being dominated by early releases of Dune, which is opening with $36.8 million in 24 markets on 7,819 screens this weekend, and will top the chart in virtually all of them. More...