Weekend Box Office Predictions
October 9 - October 11, 2020
Published on October 8, 2020 at 2:15PM Pacific |
| This weekend 101 Studios' The War with Grandpa will look to end the five-week reign of Warner's Tenet at the top of the domestic box office. The Tim Hill directed family comedy stars Robert De Niro
and Oakes Fegley. The War with Grandpa represents the second major release for young distributor 101 Studios; the first being last year's The Current War: Director's Cut
(which debuted with $2.63 million from 1,022 locations). The War with Grandpa will be launching in 2,250 locations this weekend (more than double the opening weekend location count of The Current War), but will obviously
have its potential limited in part by continued seating capacity limits throughout North America. And unlike Unhinged and The New Mutants back in August, The War with Grandpa won't have screens mostly to itself
this weekend to drive up screenings per location. Potential for The War with Grandpa (and the marketplace in general this weekend) will be further limited by the decision of Cineworld to temporarily re-close the vast majority of
its 500+ Regal locations in the United States beginning this weekend. |
| With all of that said, the theatrical marketplace (specifically the family marketplace) did have a bit of good news last weekend, after Disney's re-issue of Hocus Pocus surprised with an estimated
$1.93 million (and did so with a limited amount of showtimes at many locations). The performance of Hocus Pocus last weekend also suggests there is at least some demand for family films in the current marketplace. While it will
be in less theatres than Hocus Pocus was in last weekend, The War with Grandpa will be getting significantly more screenings per location than Hocus Pocus did at most locations last weekend. A per-location average
just under $1,250 would give the Robert De Niro-led The War with Grandpa a first place debut of $2.8 million this weekend. |
| After leading the domestic box office for the previous five frames, Tenet will look to finish in second place this weekend. Last weekend Tenet declined just 21 percent to gross an estimated
$3.4 million. Had Regal locations not re-closed this weekend, Tenet probably would have had an even stronger percentage hold than it did last weekend, but that won't be happening now. At the same time, even with the re-closing
of most Regal locations, Tenet will still be in enough locations that it should be able to hold up fairly well overall this weekend. A 30 percent decline would put Tenet on target for a second place take of $1.9 million
this weekend, as the film continues to approach the $50 million domestic mark. |
| After last weekend's surprisingly successful re-issue of Hocus Pocus, Disney will be re-issuing Coco this weekend. The critically acclaimed Pixar produced computer animated film was a healthy
performer for Disney back in 2017 (the film grossed $209.7 million domestically). While Coco was a much stronger performer in its initial run than Hocus Pocus was, in only being 3 years old (as compared to 27 years old)
there shouldn't be as much (unexpected) pent up demand for a re-issue of Coco. Also coming into play will be that with a location count of 1,899 this weekend, Coco won't be going as wide as Hocus Pocus did last
weekend (though it does look like Coco might be getting slightly more screenings per location than Hocus Pocus did at many theatres last weekend). While it should come in below last weekend's performance of
Hocus Pocus, Coco could come in slightly above the estimated $0.91 million re-issue performance of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back two weeks ago. A per-location average in the neighborhood of $600 would give
Coco a third place take of $1.15 million for the frame. |
| Speaking of Hocus Pocus, after last weekend's break-out performance (relatively speaking), the re-issue should continue to have a healthy presence at the box office this weekend. While Hocus Pocus
will take a hit from playing in 457 fewer locations this weekend (2,113 in comparison to 2,570 last weekend) and from facing new competition for family audiences from both The War with Grandpa and Coco, the film will be
aided this weekend by the continued lead-up to Halloween and by not losing many screenings per location in comparison to last weekend. A decline of 45 percent (and a per-location average decline of 34 percent) would place Hocus Pocus
at $1.05 million, which would be good enough for fourth place this weekend. |
| Also opening this weekend is Sony's Yellow Rose. Initial critical reviews for the Diane Paragas directed film from Stage 6 have been good. As of publishing, this weekend's location count for the film isn't
available, but Yellow Rose will likely be in moderate / semi-wide release this weekend. While there isn't an opening weekend prediction being made for the film, Yellow Rose could have a slightly stronger start than that of
fellow Stage 6 film The Last Shift a couple weeks ago (assuming Yellow Rose is launched in a fairly similar number of locations after all). |
|
|
Predictions for this weekend's top 6 films at the domestic box office.
| Rank | Film (Distributor) | Weekend Gross |
Total Gross |
% Change |
Week # |
| 1 | The War with Grandpa (101 Studios) |
$2.80 M | $2.8 M | NEW | 1 |
| 2 | Tenet (Warner Bros.) |
$1.90 M | $47.9 M | -30% | 7 |
| 3 | Coco (re-issue) (Disney) |
$1.15 M | $1.15 M | NEW | 1 |
| 4 | Hocus Pocus (re-issue) (Disney) |
$1.05 M | $3.3 M | -45% | 2 |
| 5 | The New Mutants (Disney / 20th Century) |
$0.75 M | $22.0 M | -28% | 7 |
| 6 | Unhinged (Solstice Studios) |
$0.60 M | $19.3 M | -29% | 9 |
Follow BoxOfficeReport on Twitter |
Find BoxOfficeReport on Facebook |