Weekend Predictions: It Looks Like a Scary Weekend
October 11, 2019
There are three wide releases coming out, two of which have terrible reviews, The Addams Family and Gemini Man, while the third film, Jexi, as no reviews. It’s one of those weekends. Joker is widely expected to earn first place and it should hold better than Venom did during its second weekend of release, which is great news for 2019. Furthermore, this weekend last year, there were three wide releases with a total opening of $40 million. We should be able to top that this year by a significant margin, but A Star is Born is the one reason why 2018 could win in the year-over-year competition.
Joker opened with $96.20 million last weekend and even a 60% drop-off with weekend will leave it in first place with $38 million. A 60% drop-off is possible, but I’m not that pessimistic. On the high end, it could help end with a sophomore stint decline of just over 50% giving the film about $45 million over the weekend. I’m going with $43 million, which is a little on the higher end of the expected range.
The Addams Family is a Halloween themed family film and this is the perfect time to release a movie like this. Unfortunately, its reviews are far from perfect, although scarily, they are the best of the three new releases coming out this week. If you look at the individual reviews, you will find a lot of 5 out of 10 reviews, meaning the critic isn’t recommending the film, but they don’t hate it either. It’s something you can buy for your kids and they will watch it a couple of times each Halloween. It’s also probably enough to give it a decent opening weekend of about $25 million.
Earlier in the week, Gemini Man’s reviews rose to 40% positive and I thought that if they could keep climbing, the film would do well at the box office. Nope. That didn’t happen. In fact, they fell to just 27% positive. Additionally, it turns out not a single theater in the United States is set up for the 120 fps, 3D, 4K the film was shot in, so you won’t even be able to see the stunning visuals the way it was intended to be seen. That said, I don’t think it will bomb and I think it will earn a close third place with $24 million.
Abominable is dealing with direct competition this weekend and that will hurt its legs. That said, it should still pull in between $6 million and $7 million over the weekend raising its running tally to nearly $50 million in the process.
Downton Abbey should round out the top five with between $4 million and $5 million. It is on pace to hit $100 million, if Focus Features gives it a push to get over the top.
Jexi is barely opening truly wide and its buzz is deathly quiet. Add in zero reviews and I really think this film will miss the Mendoza Line with under $4 million. If it earned less than $3 million, I wouldn’t be too shocked. This is too bad, because it wouldn’t take much to earn a spot in the top five and that would at least give it some free publicity for its home market run.
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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Gemini Man, Abominable, The Addams Family, Joker, Downton Abbey, Jexi