Second weekend of November 2025
The deeper roster of films we started accumulating last week should make the difference between the gross last year (Red One, Hello Love Again, A Real Pain) and this year, so we should beat last year by a nice percentage. The key aspect over the next couple of weeks will be tied to how the tentpoles deliver, since it’s kind of a repeat of last year, with one significant difference. If Wicked For Good and Zootopia 2 do about the same business as Wicked and Moana 2 did last year, that’s a great start. But we’re missing Gladiator this year, and even though we have a couple of more titles this year than last year, it’s unlikely any of them will add up to what Gladiator contributed last year. But since we have a deeper roster of holdovers heading into Thanksgiving, hopefully they’ll make up the shortfall.
I wrote last week about the way we’re treating legacy IP’s, and how the different elements you attach to them can make a difference. Rather than address them up here, I’ll do it individually below.
Anyway, with the same expected accuracy as Brooks Barnes assessment that the studios don’t know what they are doing (based on the data point that movies that critics like* don’t work at the box-office; but it apparently never occurred to him that the critics are out of touch with the consumer and are up their own asses, and more often than not do not align with moviegoer exit polls), here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Now You See Me, Now You Don’t - Speaking of movies where the critics have been out of touch, the original Now You See Me wasn’t loved by the critics (52% RT score) but developed a passionate fan base, especially among younger moviegoers. The critics really hated the sequel (33% RT score) and even though the exits were just okay, they weren’t anything close to that low RT score. So now you have a 3rd dip in the IP pool, and because the last film took a dip in quality, you’ve got to polish that IP back up. It looks like this film did the job and the film makers finally delivered a film in the series the critics didn’t hate, and (as of this writing) it’s fresh on RT; and the exits are pretty good so this is apparently very satisfying to the fans. What’s especially impressive here is that this film is being released in a competitive landscape that’s populated by effects heavy films that the exhibitors feel are more suited to the PLF screens. So their PLF footprint is pretty light, and they’re missing those higher ticket price theaters, but they’re still going to win the weekend. The grosses are best in the Northeast, and that’s been consistent with this franchise from the start, but this is a really nice win for Lion’s Gate; and depending on how much tomorrow bounces, this should end up in the low 20’s.
The Running Man - There’s a lot of interesting aspects here, and as much as I pride myself on seeing things coming before they happen at the box-office, there are a couple of things here that I didn’t anticipate. Paramount did a really nice job on the marketing here, but as much as they can put out materials that do a great job of making this redo of the Arnold version attractive, sometimes there are elements that cause consumers to fall out of the purchase funnel, and it looks to me like that happened here.
One of the issues on this film happened this week when Paramount lifted the review embargo, and although the reviews were mixed/positive (currently at 65%), a lot of them pointed out that this wasn’t really the action adventure film Paramount was selling and it was more of a Social Commentary/parody of the current media landscape. Uh-oh, that’s not good, and whenever you have phrases like that, all consumers hear these days is ‘politics’, and then you have issues. But that’s not an issue that hits the various IP fanships this movie had, they’ll still go; it’s the tagalongs where that’s an issue and that’s something that shows up in the gross.
Another interesting data point here is with Glen Powell, he’s built a large part of his fanship from monster hits like Top Gun Maverick and Twisters. But where is the biggest part of that fanship? They were both big red state movies, and now he’s in a blue state Media parody/Sci-fi movie, so once the critics outed the movie, it became somewhat of a feathered fish. But once again his fans will still go, it’s just a tagalong issue and losing them adds up.
Lastly, the exits here are apparently just okay. All the points I’ve raised wouldn’t matter as much if the movie was loved by the fans and with a director like Edgar Wright, the critics; but they just like it. And that brings up an interesting question, why is a film that plays just okay being released in such a competitive marketplace? A couple of months ago when this film was still dated last week against Predator, they moved it to this week; and if they knew the playability was just okay, wouldn’t a play period like January be a better fit? If you’re going to go this time of year you’ve got to have a film that’s built to compete, but it looks like this film didn’t turn out that way. Obviously there was something along the way that made them feel differently about the quality of the film when that decision was made.
The grosses today are in line with the opening day yesterday, and what’s interesting is how a Sci-Fi/Social Commentary film like this should have grosses where the coastal blue state theaters would be significantly better than the red state theaters, but there’s much more parity between the two markets. That’s probably Glen’s audience making the red states better than they should be, and without his IP, this gross might be softer. As much as the gross this weekend will get beat up for coming in less than it was forecast to come in, once you take a step back and look at what big star films with a social commentary angle do, it kind of makes sense. When you compare this to other films that tried to position themselves as broader than they actually were like One Battle After Another and Killers of the Flower Moon (and both of those opened in the low 20’s), since Glen and Edgar don’t have nearly the IP box-office reach as Leo and Marty (or PTA), the high teens gross this looks like it’s going to end up at aligns.
Predator: Badlands - There was a lot of talk about this having a great holdover this week, but they lost a lot of their PLF theaters, and that was over 50% of the gross last weekend. So this is waaaay down today, and the real benchmark for the holdover power will come with next weekend’s grosses, and they don’t have a big change in the type of theater they are in. Figure it’s down 60% for a weekend in the mid teens.
Keeper - Seems like just yesterday Osgood Perkins burst on the scene with the stunning $22 million opening on Longlegs. But even though the critics really liked the film, audiences didn’t; and he followed it up with The Monkey, which had a similar critics love, audience hate component. Now we have this film on 2000 theaters, and this time the critics were so-so, but the exit polls are the low side of bad. To say the shine is off his IP would be a massive understatement, and this looks like it’s headed to a similar number as he had on Longlegs…if you put a decimal point between the two 2’s.
Sentimental Value - Expanded to a few more markets from its NY/LA exclusive last week, and a couple of the expansion markets are not bad. Decent numbers coming out of Austin, San Fransisco, Chicago and Boston. Looks like a psa in the high teens.
The Carpenter’s Son - Went 500 runs and it’s bad, really bad. I’m not sure it’s even going to get to $100k.
Rebuilding - Went 2 theaters in NY (Angelika and Lincoln Sq) and it’s pretty good in both of them. It should end up with a nice psa in the high teens.
- and he cited films like After the Hunt and Die My Love as examples, which if you’ve seen either one are closer to root canal surgery than any sort of entertainment proposition.