The Winter Olympics—and, more importantly, the Super Bowl—are going to affect the weekend box office, as theaters will be quieter than usual. It doesn’t help that no big titles were released on Friday.
Sam Raimi’s “Send Help” might very well stay at #1—it took in $3.5M on Friday and is eyeing a $10M+ second weekend. A drop of only 48% is expected, which would bring the film’s total tally to $36M by Sunday evening. The budget was $35–40M, so it might very well make a profit by the end of its run.
That’s what happens when you trust a talented filmmaker who ends up making a strong genre film with no IP attached to its name—kudos to 20th Century for trusting.
Coming in second will be Angel Studios–distributed Kevin James rom-com “Solo Mio,” which took in $3.1M on Friday and is aiming for a stellar $7.6M opening weekend.
K-pop concert movie “Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience”—never heard of it—is expected to land in third following a $3.2M Friday. A frontloaded title, it might be looking at a $5M weekend.
At #4 will be Luc Besson’s “Dracula,” which is looking at a $4.8M opening. That’s actually more than I ever thought it would get, considering the lack of marketing—and the fact that it came out last year in France, not to mention that it’s been months since it leaked online.
Last weekend’s surprise hit, Markiplier’s “Iron Lung,” a self-produced indie horror, was very frontloaded—it’s set to go down 74% in its second weekend with a $4.7M sophomore frame. No worries: the film will hit $30M domestically by the end of the weekend, and since its budget was only $3M, that’s what we would call a success.
The opposite of success awaits “The Strangers – Chapter 3,” which is aiming for a $3.7M opening weekend. At #7 will be “Melania,” dropping 51% to a $3.5M second-weekend haul.
SS Rajamouli’s upcoming “magnum opus” is called “Varanasi,” starring Mahesh Babu, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Prithviraj Sukumaran — a massive movie, which just got more massive.