Weekend predictions: Tom and Jerry and Raya do battle for top spot

March 12, 2021

Raya and the Last Dragon

After a relative flurry of new wide releases earlier in the month, this weekend sees no films opening in over 1,000 theaters. We do, however, have a close race at the top of the chart to look forward to, and a nearly-wide release that could tell us something about the state of the theatrical market as more theaters open and some potential moviegoers receive their pandemic recovery checks. We’re almost certainly going to have a down week as Raya and the Last Dragon, Chaos Walking, and Boogie decline from their opening weekend numbers.

First up though, let’s look at the potential for this week’s kind-of-wide release Long Weekend…



While a predicted opening of $874,000 doesn’t look great on paper, the model isn’t (yet) taking into account the relative performance of romantic films during the pandemic, which would make things look worse. If Long Weekend performs as poorly as Broken Hearts Gallery and 2 Hearts it would come in with between $400,000 and $700,000.

We don’t yet have enough data to draw any firm conclusions about the performance of romantic films during the pandemic, but Long Weekend could provide it. Just like Tom and Jerry gave me enough confidence to adjust our model for family films, a poor showing by Long Weekend would confirm, in my eyes, the weakness of romantic films, at least for now. Are enough essential workers vaccinated that date night is becoming a thing again? Maybe this weekend we’ll find out.





The battle at the top of the chart will most likely generate more coverage this weekend. Our model gives Tom and Jerry the edge, but it’ll be a close-run thing. Raya’s reviews suggest it’ll have good word of mouth, and a small over-performance on its second weekend would keep it in top spot.

Overall, the market is likely to be quite a bit smaller than last weekend thanks to the lack of new releases. Most films were down quite sharply from their prior week earnings on Thursday, so we shouldn’t expect general market improvements to save us. A win for Raya and a better-than-expected opening for Long Weekend would be hopeful signs though (as would anything over $5 million for Tom and Jerry).

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Chaos Walking, Raya and the Last Dragon, Boogie, Long Weekend