Weekend estimates: Croods still rule

December 13th, 2020

The Croods: A New Age continues to dominate at the box office (relatively speaking) this weekend, with Universal projecting a weekend box office of $3.01 million for a total of $24.26 million to date. Half Brothers is outperforming expectations in second place with a projected $490,000 sophomore weekend, down just 30% from its last outing. More...

Weekend predictions: have we reached rock bottom?

December 11th, 2020

In this week’s prediction column, we could focus on the wreckage of the current theatrical market, or look ahead to better times to come. Let’s look ahead, shall we?

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Weekend estimates: Let Him Go tops expectations with $4 million opening

November 8th, 2020

Let Him Go is pulling off a comfortable win at the box office this weekend, according to studio projections released on Sunday morning. Its $4.1-million opening is the third-best result during the pandemic, behind Tenet’s $20.2 million and The New Mutants’s $7.0 million, and slightly ahead of Unhinged’s $4.0 million, assuming the final numbers hold on Monday. While this is undoubtedly good news, which pushes the total for the top six close to $10 million for the first time in a while, the evidence points towards this being more a case of one film connecting with audiences rather than a significant market improvement. More...

Weekend estimates: Honest Thief wins weekend with $3.7 million

October 18th, 2020

Honest Thief will top the domestic box office this weekend with a $3.7 million opening that is in line with expectations, and provides more evidence that the theatrical business is at least stable in the United States. Relatively good numbers for the re-release of The Nightmare Before Christmas bolster that argument, although 2 Hearts is underperforming hopes. Overall, it’s a story of two steps forward, one step back. More...

Weekend estimates: The War with Grandpa pulls off surprise win

October 11th, 2020

Although the theatrical market is still in the doldrums, The War with Grandpa is providing some welcome good news this weekend with a surprise win. 101 Studios is projecting $3.608 million for the weekend, which is more than double our prediction, and wouldn’t be a particularly surprising result for a film like this from a new distributor under normal circumstances. Its performance raises some interesting questions about what films will and won’t work in theaters at the moment. More...

Weekend estimates: Tenet leads lackluster weekend

September 27th, 2020

This was never going to be a weekend for the record books, but the estimates released on Sunday morning reveal a theatrical market that’s barely clinging to life. With no major new releases, Tenet will win by default, but its $3.4 million projected weekend is down 28% from last time around, and the market as a whole looks as though it has weakened by about 20% in the last seven days. The biggest new release of the weekend is almost certainly Break the Silence: The Movie, which is rumored to have opened with around $1 million, putting it in a tie for third with Unhinged. The New Mutants remains in second place, with Disney projecting $1.147 million for the weekend. More...

Weekend estimates: Infidel posts solid opening, under the circumstances

September 20th, 2020

It looks as though we’ll have another down weekend for total domestic box office, with perhaps $11 million in combined ticket sales for all movies, compared to $12.3 million last weekend, but there are a few small grains of good news to be found. Infidel topped (very modest) expectations, with a projected opening of $1.5 million, and the four other films still playing in wide release that have reported so far all had relatively good holds by historical standards. Tenet hit the $250 million mark worldwide, but Mulan continues to struggle.

Here are the details… More...

Weekend estimates: Mulan posts disappointing $23.2 million opening in China, Tenet crosses $200 million worldwide

September 13th, 2020

The return of major new theatrical releases in the United States is great news for the industry, but this past few days have shown just how tough it will be to recover from the effects of the pandemic. After Tenet’s seemingly not-too-good, not-too-bad opening last weekend, two studios revealed what they really thought at end of the week, with Warner Bros. pushing Wonder Woman 1984 back to December 25, and Universal shifting Candyman to sometime in 2021. Clearly business isn’t good enough (yet) to support movies that could be very profitable under normal circumstances.

Warner Bros. and Universal do earn some credit for sticking with a theatrical strategy for the films, at least for now. Disney, meanwhile, have (amongst other things) been criticized for releasing Mulan on Disney+ here in the United States, and didn’t get the best of news this weekend for their international theatrical strategy, as the film rolled out in China with a modest $23.2 million.

New numbers for Tenet, and an opening weekend estimate for The Broken Hearts Gallery also give us new insight into progress in the domestic market.

Here’s a round-up of the weekend numbers released so far. More...

Weekend prediction: The Broken Hearts Gallery

September 10th, 2020

With theaters slowly reopening in North America, albeit with significant capacity restrictions, and new releases returning to theaters after a long, lonely, Summer, we thought it was time to take a look at our weekend predictions. Traditionally, these have been compiled through a combination of research and judgment, much like the predictions you’ll see on many web sites, trade publications, and newspapers. While our predictions have always stacked up well compared to everyone else, going forwards we wanted to do something that more closely embodies the ethos of The Numbers: providing objective, data-based analysis of the movie industry.

I’m pleased to announce our new weekend previews, which will be based on a model we’re developing that uses our huge database of movie box office and metadata to predict the weekend box office for movies currently playing in theaters. The prediction model debuts this week with an analysis of Sony’s The Broken Hearts Gallery, and we’ll be refining and expanding the model and predictions over the weeks to come. More...

Weekend Predictions: Tenet Set to Tame a Chaotic Box Office

September 2nd, 2020

The chaos that is 2020 continues this long weekend. Usually Labor Day marks the official end of the summer blockbuster season, but in 2020 up is down, left is right, and the Canucks still haven’t been eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs. With all of this turmoil, it kind of makes sense that the first summer blockbuster getting released this year, Tenet, is coming out on the last weekend of summer. It is the only wide release of the week, and, while The New Mutants and Unhinged will still be in many theaters, they simply won’t be able to compete with Christopher Nolan’s latest epic. More...

Weekend Estimates: New Mutants Posts $7 Million Opening

August 30th, 2020

Although the war for survival of the theatrical business is only beginning, The New Mutants is at least winning a small early battle by posting an opening weekend that is in line with expectations. In fact, the film will exactly hit our pre-weekend prediction of $7 million, according to Disney’s Sunday morning projection.

Beyond the top-line number, signals are mixed. Mutants’ theater average of $2,903 is better than Unhinged’s $2,206 last weekend, but its box office fell on both Saturday and Sunday, suggesting poor word of mouth. Unhinged itself is down 35% from last weekend, even though it gained an extra 508 theaters. The other new releases were weak (although what a joy to see something new). More...

Weekend Predictions: A Slate of New Releases

August 28th, 2020

For the first time since March, we have multiple wide releases this week, or to be more accurate, multiple semi-wide or wider releases. The New Mutants is the biggest new release of the week, playing in 2,412 theaters, and it is looking to top Unhinged’s $4 million result from last week. Bill and Ted: Face the Music is opening in more than 1,000 theaters, but it is also playing in PVOD, so its theatrical chances are more questionable. The third wide release of the week is The Personal History of David Copperfield, which has the best reviews, but it also has by far the quietest buzz. More...

International Round Up: The Eight Hundred Lights Up Chinese Theaters

August 27th, 2020

The international markets were dominated at the weekend by The Eight Hundred’s blockbuster release in China. It was expected to do well, but a a seven-day opening “weekend” of $113.4 million ($115.4 million including previews) is beyond expectations, given the 50% capacity restrictions in Chinese theaters. It is actually more than Hobbs & Shaw earned this time last year, and helped the box office more than triple compared to last week. Granted, Hobbs & Shaw only had four days at the box office and not seven, but this is still a spectacular opening.

Performance around the rest of the world was more mixed, but there are some hopeful signs as Tenet starts its long-anticipated rollout. More...

Weekend Wrap-Up: Unhinged Begins to Pry Open the Box Office

August 25th, 2020

For the first time in what feels like years, a film earned more than $1 million at the box office over the weekend. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run had a shot last weekend, but we had to wait for Unhinged’s American debut for this milestone to be surpassed. The film made $4 million in 1,823 theaters for a two-week total of $5 million, including its run in Canada. More...

Weekend Predictions: Unhinged Hopes to Unite Moviegoers

August 20th, 2020

Last weekend, the domestic box office started its long road to recovery with two wide releases in Canada. While The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run failed to meet expectations, Unhinged got off to a surprisingly strong start. This weekend, the Russell Crowe thriller expands into the United States, and how well it does there will give us a sense of the overall box office’s health going forward. More...

Weekend Wrap-Up: SpongeBob and Unhinged Kick Off the Theatrical Comeback

August 18th, 2020

The release of two major new movies in Canada at the weekend gave us a first chance to see how the box office might recover in North America as theaters open up. The results are not particularly encouraging, although they are in line with our analysis earlier this month. More...

Weekend Preview: SpongeBob Ready to Run Away with the Box Office

August 13th, 2020

For the first time in a long, long time there are wide releases to talk about. That is, two films are opening wide... in Canada: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run and Unhinged. While Canada is a lot smaller than the United States, it is still a large enough part of the domestic box office that we should see the best domestic weekend since the pandemic caused theaters to be shut down in March. More...

International Round Up: Deliver Us from Box Office Doldrums

August 13th, 2020

South Korea had an explosive weekend with Deliver Us From Evil earning the best opening in that market since January. The film pulled in $10.59 million on 1,997 screens over the weekend for a total opening of $15.03 million. There is still some bad news in the market though. For instance, Steel Rain 2: Summit fell 70% from last weekend to $1.49 million on 1,016 screens for a total of $10.74 million so far. Peninsula fell a further 67% to $748,000 on 639 screens for a total of $27.08 million after four weeks of release. These are sharp declines, even for South Korea, which isn’t known for long legs. That said, they are not a disaster. Additionally, while the overall box office is only about half of what it was this weekend last year, there are still restrictions in seating capacity in theaters and the lack of depth are still factors, so it appears the box office is in shape to truly bounce back once the situation has returned to normal. More...

August Preview, Part 1: Will This Be the Month for a Major New Release?

August 1st, 2020

It has been a long time since we’ve seen a theatrical release from a major studio in North America, but that grim record may finally change in August. While there are only three major releases still on the calendar, and things remain in flux, it seems likely that at least one of them will open on their current release date.

That assumption is based partly on Warner Bros.’ decision to go ahead with Tenet’s release on September 3, and United Artists’ release of Bill and Ted Face the Music in theaters and VOD on September 1. With theaters steadily opening internationally, the pressure to release new films has become too great, even while the pandemic continues to rage in the United States. Even if expectations are very low domestically, it makes sense to start releasing films that have some international appeal, can lure moviegoers back to theaters in small numbers in the US, and then can make back more money from domestic video releases.

In the first part of this month’s preview, we look at the films that are lined up to open in August. Tomorrow, we’ll analyze what it’ll take to get box office earnings close to normal, and how long we can expect that to take, at least in countries that are bringing the pandemic under control. More...

International Round Up: South Korea Leads the Way, Will the Rest of the World Follow?

July 23rd, 2020

The release at the weekend of Peninsula, the follow-up to Train to Busan, in South Korea gave us the first genuinely positive box office news in months. Some markets around Asia showed impressive relative growth. The studios are beginning to adapt to the uneven pace of recovery from the first (and hopefully, at least in some countries, last) wave of the pandemic. But there are also some notable weak spots. Here’s a round-up of current conditions at the international box office. More...

July Preview: When Will We Next See a Wide Release?

July 1st, 2020

Will there be a new wide theatrical release in July? Just over two weeks ago, the answer to that question looked like it might be yes. NATO, the North American Theater Owners trade association, said they expected about 90% of theaters would re-open by the time Tenet was set to debut on July 17. Things have changed since then, to say the least.

The overly-optimistic predictions came before the United States topped 40,000 newly-detected COVID-19 cases in a single day for multiple days in a row. Now that we’re at the beginning of July, only one film is still scheduled to open wide this month, Unhinged, that’s hanging on by a thread. That prompts the question, when can we realistically expect to see a new wide release?

Let’s look at the data… More...

Unhinged Trailer

May 28th, 2020

Thriller starring Russell Crowe and Caren Pistorius opens in theaters July 1 ... Full Movie Details.

Rachel is running late to work when she has an altercation at a traffic light with a stranger whose life has left him feeling powerless and invisible. Soon, Rachel finds herself and everyone she loves the target of a man who decides to make one last mark upon the world by teaching her a series of deadly lessons. What follows is a dangerous game of cat and mouse that proves you never know just how close you are to someone who is about to become unhinged. More...