Weekend estimates: Raya stays top with good second-week hold
March 14, 2021
A solid second-week performance will be enough to keep Raya and the Last Dragon at the top of the box office chart this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday morning. Its strength contributed to unusually large declines for the movies competing with it for family audiences, but generally it looks as though this weekend will continue the modest growth trend in the theatrical market.
While a 35% decline to $5.5 million isn’t a spectacular performance, it is quite a bit better than normal, even during the pandemic: Tom and Jerry fell by 53% in its second weekend, and The Croods: A New Age by 54%. Those two films were the main victims of Raya’s strength, with both of them losing theaters while Raya added 118 venues this weekend. Word of mouth is clearly very strong for the Disney animated film, and it could be set for a long run in theaters. A total theatrical haul over $50 million seems on the cards, to add to whatever it’s making from its premium run on Disney+.
As the chart above shows, returning films are generally out-performing expectations this weekend, and the top six will earn 14% more than our model predicted. The Marksman will be down just 7% this weekend and, although it didn’t perform much better than the model predicted, it will stay in the top six for another weekend. Chaos Walking is perhaps the biggest surprise though, with a $2.25-million weekend that’s just 40% lower than its opening. The performance of those two films suggests that the audience for action movies is getting more interested in coming back to theaters.
The opening of Long Weekend, however, suggests the opposite for romantic films. It will earn just $245,000 from 814 theaters, which gives it the dubious distinction of having the worst performance of any film released during the pandemic, according to our model. The previous record holder was The Broken Hearts Gallery, which earned $1.13 million on its opening weekend back in September.
In my column on Friday, I noted how the performance of Long Weekend could give me enough confidence to adjust our model to reflect the relative lack of interest in romantic movies at the moment. An opening this weak clearly crosses the threshold, and I’ll be introducing that adjustment going forward. It’ll be an interesting market to watch as more films are released, because it seems romantic films are especially sensitive to perceptions on the pandemic.
Our model is now tracking the share of the pre-pandemic audience willing to see films in three categories. The strongest of these is family films (Tom and Jerry and The Croods being prime examples), which are attracting an estimated 49% of their pre-pandemic audience. Romantic films (Long Weekend, Broken Hearts Gallery) are the weakest, with 13% of their pre-pandemic audience. “The rest”—all other films—are currently being watched in theaters by 26% of their pre-pandemic audience.
Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
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Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Chaos Walking, The Croods: A New Age, Raya and the Last Dragon, Tom and Jerry, The Little Things, Land, The Marksman, Boogie, Long Weekend