Weekend Box Office Predictions
May 6 - May 8, 2022
Published on May 5, 2022 at 6:00PM Pacific |
| The summer moviegoing season officially kicks off this weekend with the release of Disney’s highly anticipated Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The latest installment of the Marvel Cinemantic
Universe (MCU) sees director Sam Raimi return to the superhero genre (for the first time since 2007’s Spider-Man 3) and stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong and Xochitl Gomez.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will be playing in 4,534 locations this weekend, which makes the film the widest release since the re-opening of domestic theatres.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will also be playing on IMAX screens this weekend and will have Thursday preview shows beginning at 3PM. |
| 2016’s Doctor Strange debuted with $85.06 million and went on to gross $232.64 million domestically. But Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is obviously positioned as a direct follow-up to
last year’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, which debuted with a massive $260.14 million domestically back in December. While Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness isn’t expected to match the break-out opening weekend of
Spider-Man: No Way Home, the film will have no problem zooming past the $134.01 million debut of The Batman back in March to easily register the largest opening weekend of 2022 thus far and the second largest opening
weekend since re-opening. In comparison to both Spider-Man: No Way Home and especially The Batman, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will be helped out this weekend by having a significantly shorter
run-time (at 126 minutes) than those of The Batman and Spider-Man: No Way Home. That relatively shorter run-time is allowing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to have a truly massive amount of showtimes
throughout the weekend. On the average, critical reviews for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness have been good, but not great. |
| On Wednesday, Doctor Strange in the in the Multiverse of Madness was off to an exceptional international start with an estimated $27.2 million from just 20 select international markets. According to Disney, the
opening day performance of Doctor Strange in the in the Multiverse of Madness was 210 percent ahead of The Batman and only 4 percent behind Spider-Man: No Way Home in like-for-like markets. The initial international start
of Doctor Strange in the in the Multiverse of Madness is another strong sign for the film’s domestic opening weekend performance. Perhaps the only potential negative for Doctor Strange in the in the Multiverse of Madness is
that the film could prove to be more front-loaded than usual for an MCU film (for various reasons), but if so, that would come into play much more so after opening weekend. BoxOfficeReport is predicting that
Doctor Strange in the in the Multiverse of Madness will debut with $201.0 million this weekend (for a per-location average of $44,332). In addition to representing the second largest opening weekend since re-opening, that would
represent the second largest opening weekend ever for the month of May (behind only 2012’s Marvel’s The Avengers) and the ninth largest opening weekend of all-time. |
| After leading the box office each of the past two weekends, Universal and DreamWorks Animation's The Bad Guys will find itself in a very distant second place this weekend. Last weekend
The Bad Guys declined just 32 percent to take in $16.24 million. With the added presence of Doctor Strange in the in the Multiverse of Madness, even a family film like The Bad Guys is unlikely to hold up as well
this weekend as it did last weekend. At the same time, the Mother's Day holiday on Sunday should help ease weekend declines slightly for some holdovers this weekend; with The Bad Guys likely being one of those films. A solid 37 percent
decline would transfer into $10.2 million for The Bad Guys this weekend. |
| This past weekend Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog 2 declined only 26 percent to take second place with $11.54 million, while Warner's Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore decreased a respectable
41 percent to follow in third with $8.31 million. As with The Bad Guys, both Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and The Secrets of Dumbledore are likely to decline more this weekend than they did last weekend, while also seeing
Mother's Day Sunday help this weekend's declines from being sharper than they would be otherwise. Look for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to decline 41 percent this weekend to place in third with $6.8 million and for Warner's
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore to decrease 48 percent to claim fourth with $4.3 million. |
| As for some of this weekend's other holdovers, A24's Everything Everywhere All At Once could decline a very solid 30 percent to place in fifth with $3.9 million, Focus' The Northman could decrease a
sharp 53 percent to follow in sixth with $3.0 million and Paramount's The Lost City, with the likely benefit of a Mother's Day boost, could ease just 29 percent to finish in seventh with $2.7 million. |
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Predictions for this weekend's top 9 films at the domestic box office.
| Rank | Film (Distributor) | Weekend Gross |
Total Gross |
% Change |
Week # |
| 1 | Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Disney) |
$201.0 M | $201.0 M | NEW | 1 |
| 2 | The Bad Guys (Universal / DreamWorks Animation) |
$10.2 M | $58.1 M | -37% | 3 |
| 3 | Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Paramount) |
$6.8 M | $170.6 M | -41% | 5 |
| 4 | Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (Warner Bros.) |
$4.3 M | $86.5 M | -48% | 4 |
| 5 | Everything Everywhere All At Once (A24) |
$3.9 M | $42.2 M | -30% | 7 |
| 6 | The Northman (Focus) |
$3.0 M | $28.4 M | -53% | 3 |
| 7 | The Lost City (Paramount) |
$2.7 M | $94.7 M | -29% | 7 |
| 8 | Memory (Open Road / Briarcliff) |
$1.35 M | $5.7 M | -57% | 2 |
| 9 | The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Lionsgate) |
$1.30 M | $16.2 M | -66% | 3 |
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