Father's Day weekend 2025
It’s going to be a decent Father’s Day weekend at the box-office, but as good as it is, we don’t have an answer for the massive $154 million Inside Out 2 spit out last year. Considering how massive that film was, we aren’t going be that far behind last year, maybe 35% or so, but the next couple of weeks should be pretty even with last year. Father’s Day isn’t as much of an accelerant as Mother’s Day (less fear of retribution if you mess it up), but there’s still some upside on Sunday if you’ve got the right film. How to Train Your Dragon could go either way, definitely no bounce on Materialists but maybe Mission Impossible is the go to film Sunday.
As I look through my social feed this week, I’m seeing a lot of posts this time of year with kids graduating and moving on the next level of life. And we’re seeing a Theatrical version of that at the box office today with A24, they’re consistently moving from a studio that opens movies in the single digits to a studio that’s starting to open movies with 1’s and 2’s in front of the weekend gross. So today is part of their Graduation day from a mini-major to a mid-level major. And the way they are doing it is interesting because (they are staying true to the marketing roots that got them here) there’s some elements that are good and we all should pay attention to them, but there are also things they’ve got to solve to get to the point where they are opening movies with 3’s, 4’s and higher.
If the grosses today hold up, Materialists could be A24’s 2nd highest opening weekend in their history, a ways behind Civil War’s $26 million, and in the same vicinity as Hereditary’s $13.6 million. But what’s interesting is that they got to where they are today without any (that I can find) linear TV buy. They bought TV, just not linear TV. They bought ad supported tiers on streamers like Paramount + and Hulu, and as we’re always looking for a way to get those tagalongs, buying something where you can’t fast forward through the ads is a smart move. Of course the downside of those tiers is they are lower income consumers, because the higher echelons can afford the ad free tier. But there’s something going on today that, as good as it is, shows they’ve got to grow more if they want to move up to weekends with 3’s and 4’s in front of the gross.
A24 has become a powerful brand by staying in a particular lane; and although they started with the consumers who were the weird drama kids that hung out near the amphitheater in high school, they’ve moved on to the upscale consumers who appreciate a slightly different angle on storytelling. And they’ve been really successful with those consumers; but they live in big cities, and as we saw last year on Civil War, the one set of consumers they needed to get a 3 or 4 in front of that gross instead of a 2, was the red state movie goer.
If you look at some of the top theaters today on Materialists in the big cities like Manhattan, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago, they’re sensational and as of this writing they are outgrossing How to Train Your Dragon. So clearly they have activated the A24 audience in a big way; but if they want to keep moving up the theatrical food chain, they need to figure out those fly over consumers. Even in the theaters that are generally in the top 10 theaters in the country like Lincoln Sq, Century City and Burbank where How to Train Your Dragon is ahead, it’s not by very much. But in the top theaters for Dragon in the Red States, it’s 5x (or more) the gross of Materialists. And the success stories are the branding showing up, but outside of their strongholds, it’s just a movie.
It will be interesting to see where they go from here, and grow their brand with the folks who like to see shit blow up on screen; but they can’t give the core the excuse to say ‘they sold out’. In order to accomplish what they’ve accomplished so far, they clearly have new and revolutionary ideas, now we just have to see if they can crack the middle of the country.
Anyway, based on something I heard at a speed reading class for Emmy voters, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
How to Train Your Dragon - This IP has really grown since it debuted back in 2010, opening in the 40’s when the other DWA IP’s were opening significantly higher. And the next two films in the series stayed in the same general opening range, but this retelling of the first film as a live action/animation hybrid seems to have grown the IP significantly. As much as the critics sniffed at it complaining that it was a shot for shot remake of the first film, the audience (and they do this every once in a while) said ‘we’re cool with that’. What’s super interesting here is that if you look at the grosses and cover the distributor name, you would swear this is one of the Disney Animation releases we’ve seen on this weekend several times, it’s the same theaters and the same numbers. And that probably speaks to the strong labels (DWA and Illumination) that Universal has to work with, they’re getting a lot of reps with strong family product so they’re getting better and better at activating family audiences. They had a couple of really good opening days this week so we’re on day 3 now, but this looks like a really solid mid 80s for the weekend.
Lilo & Stitch - Considering the size of Dragon today, the holdover here isn’t half bad. Looks down 50% for a weekend in the mid teens, with an upside if they capture some Father’s Day business.
Materialists - Had a great opening day yesterday, and as I said above the big city theaters are sensational, in those theaters it’s playing like a film that would get a 2 in front of the weekend. But it’s a city girl movie and the grosses fall off really fast as you get out of the big cities and away from the coasts. What might be a factor here also is the playability, even though the critics gave it a really nice RT score (88% at this writing), the exits are pretty tepid so far. Figure unless this falls apart tomorrow and Sunday, it’s right in that same 13/14 that Hereditary ended up in. And considering how little they spent on this to get it open, that’s a number that shows growth with this company.