Weekend projections: Super Pets lands on top with projected $23 million

July 31, 2022

DC League of Super Pets will pull off a relatively comfortable weekend win, according to Warner Bros.’ Sunday-morning projection, although it’s coming in a softer than our model expected. After posting $2.2 million in previews, the film will earn about 10 times that amount over the weekend as a whole. By historical standards, that’s a very low multiplier for an animated film, and it’s also a bit below our model’s pre-preview prediction of $28.1 million. Finishing the weekend at the top of the chart is good news, of course, and Warner Bros. will be happy with the win, but it’s a bit below where they might have hoped.

Here’s how the domestic numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…

Based on the preview numbers reported on Friday, our model predicted an opening weekend of $39.6 million for Super Pets (due to an error on my part, I reported it as $39.3 million in my column on Friday). The Sunday-morning projection from the studio is far behind that number. That’s not entirely surprising given that animated films tend to play well through the weekend and preview numbers aren’t especially predicted, but it’s notable that preview multipliers for animated films have been much worse since the pandemic than they were before the pandemic. In fact, six out of the seven animated films to earn less than 10 times their previews on opening weekend were released since April, 2021. The only film prior to then to do so was Incredibles 2, which converted $18.5 million in previews into an opening weekend of $182.7 million.

If Super Pets has a modest day on Sunday, it could become the seventh post-pandemic animated film to miss that multiplier. There are several reasons why things might have changed, and I don’t have enough in-depth information to be sure which is the biggest factor—it could be as simple as studios getting more preview screenings in on Thursday—but clearly the picture that’s emerging is that previews are making up a bigger share on opening weekend earnings for films.

Looking beyond Super Pets, a few other films are having good weekends. Nope will fall a respectable 58% in its second weekend, bringing in a projected $18.55 million, which will take it past $80 million in total and pretty much guarantees it’ll make over $100 million in North America. Where the Crawdads Sing will drop just 27% in its 3rd weekend and passes $50 million this weekend. Elvis will end today around $129 million after dropping just 11% this weekend (its sixth in release). It will soon overtake The Great Gatsby as Baz Luhrmann’s biggest film at the domestic box office.

Finally, Vengeance is doing more than enough to get into the top 10 with an opening projected at $1.75 million. Our model thought $1.42 million was a par score for the film, given its genre and opening in 998 theaters, so this is a good result and another sign that independent films are doing respectable business at the moment.

Alas, with Super Pets not meeting expectations, the overall box office this weekend will likely dip below $100 million for the first time since the weekend before Memorial Day. It might be a long time before we get above that number again… maybe not until Halloween Ends arrives in mid-October. That’s good news for the films currently playing (Top Gun could have a 20-week run in the top 10!), but worrying for the industry as a whole. Hopefully we’ll have a surprise hit or two in the next couple of months. I think we’ll need them.

- Studio weekend projections
- All-time biggest weekends - All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com

Filed under: Baz Luhrmann