Saturday revision, second weekend of April 2025

Not only do we have a big hit in theaters now, we’ve got a couple of other attractive films that go at different demos and the box-office is healthiest when we offer variety, so it’s all going to add up to a really good weekend. So good in fact that we’ll get close to doubling the same weekend last year (Civil War, The Long Shot), and we have a shot of getting even with 2024’s cume gross after this weekend. But between the sheer size of Minecraft, a more robust supporting roster of films, plus next Friday is Good Friday (and most schools are on holiday), we should come close to doubling the total of 2024 again next weekend. The last weekend of the month should be well ahead too, and then on the first weekend in May we get Disney doing what Disney does well on the first weekend in May with a Marvel*. But we’re going to have about a month of surplus gross compared to last year.

Well well, look what a difference a couple of weeks makes. Two weeks ago the Entertainment press was doing their best Tyrique Stevenson impersonation [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pkmN1vIlTw8] towards the senior management at WB; but actions like that tend to piss off the gods up in The Adjustment Bureau, who reacted with ‘hold my nectar’. Hilarity ensued to the tune of a 9 figure opening, and we now have a movie in the marketplace that is saving the spring. Since pretty much everyone in town (who has a job living at a high altitude) goes through the ’I hear they are out’ rumor mill, but the volume level here was unusually high.

As someone who has been the victim of vicious lies rumors that fly around town, I find they are usually started by mediocre people that find your existence inconvenient. And one of the things that tends to make mediocre people mediocre is that they are very successful by coloring inside the lines. Anyone that colors outside the lines, but discovers something beautiful and original by breaking the rules makes those mediocre people very nervous. Lately WB has been coloring outside the lines, so it’s entirely possible that some mediocre folks around town (who are certain the lines are there for a reason) are at the root of this. But that’s just a guess. However, when execs get pushed into the crosshairs, I wish everyone would just take a breath and let them work.

Anyway, with the same accuracy normally associated with China release schedule, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.

A Minecraft Movie - With IP like this, the fan base can make the box-office performance a little front loaded and you can run through the audience by now. But this has taken on a whole new life because of the (apparently annoying to theater owners) socially generated in-theater interactions, and it looks like it’s going to be around for a while. Looks like a really nice drop of -55% for a weekend in the low 70’s.

The King of Kings - The folks at Angel have been feeding theatrical a steady slate of films, fueled by their faith based ’subscribers’, but oddly they haven’t put out a film that goes straight at the demo. They’ve had drama’s and true stories with a faith angle, but never anything like this that’s bible based. Which is odd, because if you add up the opening weekend gross of the 10 films they’ve released since the runaway Sound of Freedom, it totals about $35 million, and this film will probably out gross that by the time we get to Easter Sunday. So two questions here, first what took you so long? Second, if they are going to keep making films like they’ve been making, they really need to grow up as a company; and start doing a better job of marketing films outside their subscriber base if they’re going to be the ‘Participant’ of the Faith Based demo. Those 10 films that I mentioned are all pretty good, but they can’t seem to get anything open to the general public, only to their subscribers. If they keep making good films, they have to figure out a way to get the normal moviegoer aware of their brand and instead of being the Participant of Faith Based moviegoers, they can become the A24 of Faith Based Moviegoers. Anyway, it’s an animated film so they should have a big bounce tomorrow and end up in the low 20’s.

The Amateur - Some really nice news here on two fronts. First, it’s always good to see young talent becoming notable enough to open a movie; and even though he’s an Oscar winner, Rami Malek hasn’t opened anything without IP, so it’s nice to have another movie star in our quiver. Second, ever since Disney bought Fox, the 20th label has struggled with original IP; so it’s nice to see them get some footing in the marketplace with a solid opening like this. This looks every bit as good as the grosses for an established Movie Star like Jason Statham, and this should end up with a very similar $15 million.

The Drop - For those of you who are confused, the title doesn’t reflect the opening box office average for Blumhouse lately, that’s just a coincidence. But this weekend is consistent with what we’ve been seeing from Blumhouse lately. Looks like a weekend of about $8 million.

The Chosen: Last Supper Part III - Is anyone paying attention here? They released the first 3 episodes of this TV Series in theaters with a substantial window, they don’t drop on Amazon till June. And the grosses are all good, this is just found money and there is clearly an opportunity to do this with other TV series. Why doesn’t WB do this with White Lotus 4, or any other series that has some momentum? Clearly there is an appetite for this, and it’s a great way to fill programming gaps in theaters. This looks very similar to Episode 2’s gross, so figure about $7 million.

Warfare - This followup to Alex Garland’s Civil War (oddly enough on the same weekend last year) is one of the films this weekend with spectacular exits so far. This is one of those films that’s really hard to sell, there’s no star power and it’s not really about anything; it’s just kind of a slice of war life, and that’s a really big marketing challenge. For now it looks like 6 or 7 for the weekend, but with those exits it could end up better.

• Because Disney didn’t have a Marvel on the first weekend of May last year, we trusted Uni with the date and they Fall Guy’d it.