July 4th weekend 2024
The press seem to be running backwards from the idea that ’Theatrical is dead’ now (maybe it’s just a ‘pause’ and they’ll fire that idea up again once we hit the BarbenHeimer weekend in a couple of weeks), and we’ll have another weekend where we’ll soundly beat the same weekend last year (Insidious: The Red Door, Sound of Freedom, Joy Ride). Even though Despicable Me is the engine driving the total this weekend, Universal had two wins this week; they did a really nice job of keeping the Despicable Me IP relevant this weekend, plus they won the Thanksgiving period by upgrading Wicked to the weekend before Thanksgiving. Why is that an upgrade? Of the top 15 November opening weekends of all time, 13 of them happened on the weekend before Thanksgiving. The biggest opening of all time the day before Thanksgiving (where Wicked used to be) was Moana, and there were 28 films that opened in November to a higher gross than the $57 million Moana opened to. So now we have a BarbenHiemer situation, which hopefully will be good for the sector.
Anyway, based on the same accuracy of me spelling Confidential correctly when I’m trying to run out to a party on a holiday, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Despicable Me 4 - This started the day a little iffy, but it’s rallying and doesn’t look half bad now. Right now it’s looking like a 3 day in the low/mid 70’s, which would put the 5 day somewhere in the vicinity of 120.
Inside Out 2 - Looking shockingly resilient today, it’s not down that much from last week (considering that DM4 crashed the box-office party), and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s only down 40% or so this weekend, which would put the weekend in the mid 30’s.
MaXXXine - A24 keeps growing as a studio and they keep doing things that show the work. A great example of how forward thinking they are is that they are releasing the movie today, instead of on Wednesday. As I’ve said in the past, we need to release films on days when the hard core fans can bring their friends, and that looks like it’s happening today. Kudos to them for thinking a little differently and smarter. Almost a year ago they released Talk to Me to a really impressive $10.4 million, and this film is actually looking a little better. What’s interesting about the grosses today is where it’s doing business, it kinda looks like M3gan lite. The Grove, The Vista, DTLA, Brooklyn, the Mission SF, Wrigleyville Chicago…you get the point. Whatever they tapped into, it’s working and they are buying tickets. They did some ‘fan’ screenings Wednesday night, so they’ll add that into the weekend (distribution math), but without that this looks like a pretty impressive 11 or 12 for the weekend.
The Sound of Hope: Possum Trot - Looks like a one day wonder right now, it’s way down from yesterday. Right now it looks like a 3 day of about $4 million, which would bring the 4 day (ish) to a little more than $7 million.