Weekend estimates: Tenet leads lackluster weekend
September 27, 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.
The force is relatively strong in The Empire Strikes Back, which is returning to theaters as a celebration, of sorts, of its 40th birthday. It will start out with $908,000 in fifth place, per Disney. Shortcut is the biggest new release, with Gravitas projecting $305,000 from 725 theaters. The Last Shift will post around $235,000 for the weekend, and Kajillionaire is expected to hit $$215,000 on its opening.
To get a sense of how weak the weekend is, we can compare the projected box office for each movie with its predicted performance based on our model. The results aren’t pretty:
Every film is under-performing expectations, although Infidel is doing so by only a small margin. 25% of the US market is still not open, according to Warner Bros.’ estimate this morning, with California and New York the major holdouts. Southern California, where some theaters are open, is the strongest region for Tenet, so those closed theaters are clearly holding it back, but the fact remains that people aren’t coming back to theaters in sufficient numbers to kickstart a recovery at the box office.
Internationally, things look a little brighter, but the lack of new movies is weighing heavily everywhere. Tenet will post about $15.8 million internationally this weekend for a total of $242 million according to Warner Bros.’ estimate. That puts its global total at $283.2 million. Disney has Mulan earning $64.4 million in total internationally, with another $3.3 million coming this weekend. The New Mutants will earn around $1.4 million internationally this weekend for a total of $19.4 million outside North America (almost identical to its North American total of $19.5 million).
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Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Star Wars Ep. V: The Empire Strikes Back, Mulan, The New Mutants, Kajillionaire, Tenet, Unhinged, The Last Shift, Infidel, Beureikeu deo sa illeonseu, Shortcut