Weekend estimates: Spiral beats prediction, but not by much

May 16, 2021

Spiral

Going into the weekend, the industry was hoping Spiral would earn something around $15 million and help build on recent progress in the theatrical market. Our prediction model was considerably less optimistic, expecting the film to take in a little over $6 million. So the glass-half-full view of the weekend is that the film beat our prediction, with Lionsgate projecting it will earn $8.725 million as of Sunday morning. That’s not a huge amount over what the model expected though, and the rest of the market isn’t looking that great either.



Spiral will come in about 40% above its predicted opening, and that’s just enough that we’ll have an overall weekend that’s up from last weekend. That’s disappointing given the number of new wide releases in the market. Those Who Wish Me Dead will be about 40% below the model’s prediction (which is updated now that we know it’s playing in 3,188 theaters this weekend—the most of any film). The soft numbers aren’t much of a surprise given how little effort Warner Bros. put into marketing the film. Also falling far below the model’s prediction, Profile will debut with just $670,000, which is a fraction of its potential, but understandable given its subject matter and the timing of its release.

The one bright spot this weekend is Finding You, which is projected to open with $954,000 from 1,312 theaters. That might not sound like much, and is far short of the $5.5 million a film like this would be expected to earn pre-pandemic. But it’s the second “date night” film in a row to beat our model’s forecast, albeit by a modest amount. Prior to this weekend, the model estimated that 15% of the date-night movie audience was showing up to theaters. This result nudges that estimate up to 17%.

Our estimate for the share of the general market audience currently attending theaters continues to tread water, sadly. After ticking up to 37% after last weekend’s results, it’ll tick back down to 36%. Although it’s too early to start panicking, the numbers aren’t looking great for the market at the moment. With no wide releases next weekend, we won’t have much more information to go on when Cruella and A Quiet Place: Part II debut over Memorial Day weekend. It’s hard to overstate how crucial their releases are to the recovery of the domestic theatrical market.

- Weekend studio estimates

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Those Who Wish Me Dead, Spiral, Finding You, Profile