Weekend estimates: Mulan posts disappointing $23.2 million opening in China, Tenet crosses $200 million worldwide
September 13, 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.
First up, Mulan’s $23.2 million 3-day weekend in China is around the same level as Disney’s recent Cinderella ($23m) and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil ($23.4m). While there is some justification in Disney pointing to those films as comps, and that figure isn’t bad given there’s a pandemic on, it’s also fair to point out that The Eight Hundred earned over $84 million over its 3-day opening weekend just a few weeks ago, and Disney tailor-made Mulan for the Chinese market, to a degree that is now drawing criticism in some circles. Cinderella went on to earn $65.1 million in China, while Mistress of Evil finished with $48.8 million, and there’s little to suggest that Mulan will do better than that. The film might claw back some money from other international territories, and it’ll be interesting to see how it performs in South Korea and Hong Kong, where it opens next weekend, but it’s looking like a bust, unless Disney is piling up PVOD dollars that it’s not talking about.
Mulan’s other major opening this weekend was in Russia, where it will earn a projected $1.8 million and will finish second behind Tenet’s $2.0-million second weekend. It also opened first in Ukraine, Hungary, and South Africa, and in second plan in Poland.
The film’s top markets so far are China ($23.2 million), the Middle East ($4.0m, with a small 9% drop from opening weekend), Thailand ($2.3m), Taiwan ($1.9m), Russia (the $1.8m opening mentioned above), Singapore ($1.5m), and Malaysia ($1.1m). It’s still topping the charts in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.
Tenet will earn about $6.7 million in its second weekend in North America, which Warner Bros. reports is down 29% from its first 3-day weekend. That report clarifies how the film performed on its opening weekend a little more—remember that WB simply reported a $20.2 million “opening”, which included preview shows, its Canadian debut, and the Monday of Labor Day weekend. This allows us to estimate its last 3-day weekend at about $9.4 million, and we’ll review our tracking numbers in light of this information. The studio is perfectly within its rights to report numbers however it sees fit, but we also want to maintain accuracy in our market level reporting, particularly as the industry is trying to figure out the true state of the business right now.
Internationally, Tenet continues to do fairly well. After opening with $29.47 million last weekend in China (about 25% more than Mulan), it’ll pick up about $10.2 million there this weekend for $50.8 million to date. As noted above, it topped Mulan’s opening in its second weekend in Russia, with $2.0 million taking it to $5.73 million there, with an impressive 23% decline. The title’s other top territories are the United Kingdom ($16.4 million), France ($13.2m), Germany ($11.4m), Korea ($10.3m), Taiwan ($8.6m), Spain ($6.4m), Italy ($5.79m), Australia ($5.68m), the Netherlands ($5.4m), and Saudi Arabia ($4.2m).
Overall, Tenet will end the weekend with $29.5 million so far domestically, $177.5 million internationally, and a worldwide cume of $207 million. That moves it up to fifth place on 2020’s worldwide chart, above Birds of Prey.
Back in the North America, The Broken Hearts Galley will debut with about $1.125 million, per Sony’s Sunday estimate. I’ll have more to say on this result later in the week when I compare the result to our new prediction model, but it’s safe to say this is a disappointing number. Taken in isolation, it suggests that only about 13% of moviegoers are ready to go to theaters right now, or, more accurately, 13% of the audience for romantic comedies.
One slightly better piece of news is the performance of Unhinged, which will do about $1.5 million in its fifth weekend, down a modest 17% from last weekend. It has now earned $13.8 million in total. Its good weekend may be partly the result of people who went to Tenet last weekend deciding that theaters are safe, and looking for something else to watch this weekend. A not-too-bad drop of 33% for The New Mutants (to $2.05 million this weekend, and $15.3 million to date) also suggests some strengthening of the underlying market thanks to new theater openings.
One final snippet: Disney pegs the domestic theatrical market as a whole being 74% open this weekend, compared to 68% last weekend. That theoretically gives returning films about a 9% boost in box office compared to last weekend.
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Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Mulan, The New Mutants, Tenet, The Broken Hearts Gallery, Unhinged