Second weekend of September 2025

Thanks to Sony/Crunchyroll and the exponentially growing IP’s of Anime, we’re going to have a great total gross this weekend. And although it won’t quite get to the best 2nd weekend in September of all time (that was in 2017 with It), it’s going to significantly outperform the norm for this weekend and should be about 50% better than the same weekend last year (Speak No Evil, Am I Racist?, The Killing Game). Although a couple of weeks ago I thought the next couple of weeks were going to be just behind last year, it’s possible we’ll be at least competitive (if not ahead) each week when compared to last year.

I’ve told a story here before that seems relevant again. When I was a young Film buyer in the early 80’s, I had dinner with a wise old Theater owner who was trying to hire me. At the time VHS (and Beta, which because of it’s distant 2nd in the market became a battle cry for all formats going forward, and was a big factor in the streaming wars we just went through) was making it’s mark in the business. I asked him ‘is Home Video an issue?’, and he responded ‘pretty much every house in the world has a kitchen, but you still have restaurants, it’s a different experience and people will always want to get out of the house’. We’re seeing a lot of examples of that lately, people will pay for content out of the house, and it’s often content that didn’t start as theatrical but the demand to see it outside the house made it fiscally viable.

But let’s start with the big winner this weekend. The Manga Demon Slayer series started as a graphic novel/comic book, then became a Japanese TV series, and is now a massive Theatrical IP. It’s already made $300 million + in the Asian territories, and they’re going to add a decent amount to that total from the North American release. But when something starts as a TV series, why not just keep it there? Isn’t saying it’s the most watched Anime series ever on TV/Streaming good? Yeah, of course it’s good, but isn’t $100 million in box office revenue better, followed by the PVOD revenue, followed by the VOD revenue…and then it’s the most watched Anime movie once it hits a platform. The Chosen keeps churning out between $10 million and $20 million every time they premier new episodes in Theaters. And of course, how much money did Netflix leave on the table with K Pop Demon Hunters?

Of course TV IP in theaters is nothing new, we’ve been doing it forever. Downton Abbey this weekend is a good example of that, and before Covid there was actually a cocktail party cliche of ‘I want 5 seasons and a Movie’, and that was kind of a weird Mendoza line for success in TV. But the Anime films and The Chosen are a little different, they broke into theatrical by piecing together episodes of the series to make a movie.

The other recent aspect that shows us how much people want to go out and see something in a theater is the success of Re-Issues. Avatar a couple of years ago, Jaws a couple of weeks ago, and this weekend Toy Story and The Sound of Music. All films that aren’t hard to find if you want to watch it at home.

Back before home video blossomed as a massive revenue stream, we used to have theaters we called ‘calendar houses’. The Nuart for instance, published a calendar every month and the films (always a double feature, and the program changed each day) were films that you couldn’t see anywhere else. It was a film school education (I spent a lot of time in those theaters during high school) and the double features always had a connective tissue between them; Harold and Maude would show with Shampoo, Network would double up with Dr. Strangelove. But the tickets to see those double features was about half the price you paid at a first run house. What we’re seeing today is nice attendance at the same price they paid for a Marvel Tentpole during the summer. With the consumer telling us that this is something they want, it would seem like Exhibitors would take this idea and run with it, especially since prints are digital instead of analog; and turn the 4th screen of another title into a calendar program double feature on weeknights. But the likelihood of that happening is probably about the same as someone pedaling on an E Bike.

Anyway, with the same expected accuracy as the listener ratings for Andy 100 on Sirius/XM, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yalba Infinity - Apparently this is the weekend where Anime tipped and became something closer to Superhero films, but since both have comic book roots, that tracks. This is huge today (and was great on opening day yesterday), so the only question is how deep the audience goes. If it holds up tomorrow, it could get a 7 in front of the weekend, but if it falls apart probably closer to a 6. But it’s huge.

The Conjuring: Last Rites - Looks like a pretty typical 2nd weekend drop for a Horror film of this size, figure it drops about 65% for a weekend in the high 20’s.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale - In 2019, Focus did a great job with the film treatment of the popular PBS show, opening it to a sensational $31 million. The 2nd film came out in 2022 and even though Focus did a great job there too, we were still struggling a little to get audiences of a certain age back into the theaters, so it dropped in half to $16 million. With a more normal marketplace for this demo, it’s a little better today than the 2nd film, but there’s one thing about this release that makes me a little crazy.

If there was ever a movie that needed to get away from opening mid week, this is it. It’s fan based and it’s old as hell, what are the chances of getting any tag alongs in this demo to accompany the hard core fans on a weeknight? So instead of opening the film on the 2nd best day of the weekend (Friday) they open it on the two worst days of the week (Wednesday and Thursday). Today this looks like it’s about 20% better than New Age, which would put it around 20 for the 5 days. But here’s where the math isn’t favorable. The first film grossed 6.7% of its weekend on Thursday night, the 2nd film grossed 6.5% of its weekend on Thursday night, so even though the two marketplaces weren’t consistent, the % of the gross on Thursday stayed stable. If that 20 for the weekend holds, they did 13% of that on Wednesday and Thursday. Let’s back out the $1 million from Wednesday and say last night’s $1.6 was the only non weekend gross. Following the 6.5% Thursday of the weekend the previous films did, it would have put the 3 day at around $24 million had they passed on those Wednesday shows. So by moving those core moviegoers to Wednesday, they got $1 million and gave back $4 million. For a movie like this, the edges of the fanship aren’t super crisp, and there are fans that would go if the opportunity presented itself but wouldn’t go on their own (which would describe my fanship).

The Long Walk - They had a nice start yesterday and the grosses are solid today, but I highly recommend all of you to see this movie for one odd reason. As we finish the Fall Festival Season, isn’t it odd that a film like this with a 91% rotten tomatoes score, a vibrant up and coming cast and an A list director isn’t in any of the Festivals? As we read about 15 minute ovations for a film about a wedding filmed with an iPhone 6 with a cracked lens, this film was missing. Apparently it was submitted and they all passed on it, and that’s a head scratcher to me. I’ve seen the film and it’s something that really sticks in your head for a while, and it’s just weird to me that they didn’t want anything to do with it. Once you see it, I’d love to hear from you about why you think it was a pass (I have my suspicions, but I’m curious to hear what you all think). Anyway, this looks super solid, Lions Gate did a great marketing job on this very challenging idea, and it’s doing business mostly in the coastal and upscale theaters. Looks like a weekend around 14 or 15, but it’s male skewing and there’s a pretty decent sized fight tomorrow (depending on if Netflix punts the salad again like the did on the Paul/Tyson fight), so if there’s a film that might face those headwinds tomorrow, this is it and it might come in just a little lower.

Toy Story Re-Isssue - Doing some nice business in 2400 theaters, it will be interesting to see if this is just fans or if it’s a nice family day out tomorrow. That should be a big factor, but figure this ends up around $4 million for the weekend.

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues - Went on 2000 screens and it’s just okay in even the most art film areas with a lot of old white guys. Looks like a weekend of about $2.5 million.

The History of Sound - This film that came out of Cannes with some heat went exclusive in the classic NY/LA 4. Considering the pedigree of the cast and the cache of the festival heat, it’s just okay in LA and NY is only a little better because there are Q & A’s. The grosses look a lot like Aftersun, and you would think the IP of the similar cast would be worth more now and this isn’t in a challenging market like 2022. Looks like a fair psa of about $10k.