Super Bowl weekend 2026
Some of you received this in a weird format last week, and I’m not sure why it happened and why some of you had no issues; but Gmail has a lot of quirks that are a pain. The AI will rewrites sentences and even though I wrote something a specific way, it’s sure I meant to say something else, i.e. when I write the weekend, it corrects it to The Weekend, probably because the Gen Z programmer who trained the AI was sure I could only be talking about the artist instead of the time frame. Hopefully I don’t mess it up again this week.
Because the Super Bowl on Sunday is something no one wants to deal with, we rarely have any titles this weekend of any size. What’s weird is that it’s not that big of an effect on the gross, probably less than 10%, so it’s really not that bad of a weekend because Friday and Saturday are unaffected, you just lose the back half of Sunday.
We have about the same amount of new movie gross coming in this weekend as last year (Heart Eyes, Love Hurts, Becoming Led Zeppelin), and the total gross should be pretty close as well. Next week has some promising titles; and with Valentine’s Day on Saturday this year (one particular title is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the day), we have a shot at getting close to the gross the Captain America and Paddington in Peru generated, but more than likely we’ll be short by about 20%. The last two weeks of February look more promising (especially the last weekend), but one of the key factors in beating last year will be if the President’s Day/Valentine’s Day films hold up better than Marvel does (which, with rare exceptions are smash and grab releases and drop very quickly).
With the Sundance of Commercials Super Bowl happening this Sunday, we’ll see the usual pissing away of money on spots for movies. Normally spots for movies on TV are usually the high ground because they’re self-contained stories, and the sell is pointed towards wanting more of that story, instead of paper towels or some Pharma product you probably wouldn’t have thought of until you saw the spot and your hypochondriac tendencies clicked in. On the Super Bowl, we give up that high ground and all the other products are essentially doing the same thing, telling short stories.
Imagine the films that are (reportedly) taking spots in the game Sunday going to Sundance. Scream, Mario Brothers, Michael, Hoppers, Mandalorian, Toy Story and Minions all go to Sundance, and is there any world where the reaction wouldn’t be ‘WTF are you doing here?’. We actually know what would happen since Disney took Indiana Jones to Cannes and it wasn’t pretty, and Cannes is way more friendly to studio movies than Sundance. So as much as the Super Bowl a TV event that generates more eyeballs than any other event of the year, part of the justification for the insane cost is the resonance of the creative spot debut, which gets picked at, ranked and criticized all next week. But movies never do well in those lists because Sunday is a different competitive landscape, and on the day when the rest of the Marketing world is doing what we do the other 364 days of the year, we don’t get the backend resonance.
Anyway, with the same expected accuracy of a Hall of Fame Eligibility background check for any member of the New England Patriots, here are some thoughts on the weekend box-office.
Stray Kids: The DominATE Experience - There’s been an interesting trend lately that tells us what the consumer will leave the house and go to a theater for. The IMAX brand, and to a lesser extent the other PLF brands, seem to be the justification to go see a movie in a theater. I’ve spoken here before about how the evolution of the inexpensive large flatscreen allows a home experience that’s way better than we’ve ever had before, so it’s more of a challenge to get them out of the house, but over and over again we’re seeing that the consumer considers PLF brands as a worthwhile upgrade. And it’s not just the big tentpole films, it’s the re-issues like Jaws and the Lord of the Rings films; but the concert film genre seems to really generate purchases as well, and it looks like Bleecker Street has joined the party. The majority of the gross here is coming from those PLF screens and the grosses have been super flat so far, it looks very (if not completely) fan and pre-sales based. But the numbers are really good today, and (just like other films in this genre) this could be done after today, but if it’s fairly normal for the rest of the weekend this looks like $5 million or so. Bottom line, we need more than one IMAX theater in a complex please.
Solo Mio - The folks at Angel keep spreading their genre wings and keep wandering outside the faith based lane. This Rom Com went 3000 runs and looks good for a nice $5 million for the weekend. However, the theaters where it’s doing business are the same theaters we see on all the Angel films, so they still haven’t broken out of their subscriber base.
Dracula - The folks at Vertical probably release more films in a given year than anyone else (outside of the Bollywood distribution companies that put out a staggering amount of titles), and they usually don’t get past $1million over the first weekend. But they’ve been moving up little by little with films like Fight or Flight and We Bury the Dead, and it looks like they’re going to have a new company best here. Looks like a weekend at or about $4 million.
The Strangers Chapter 3 - There was a decent drop-off in gross from Chapter 1 to Chapter 2 (about 50%) and the decay is continuing here. Looks like about 2/3 of Chapter 2 right now which would put the weekend in the low/mid 3’s.
The Moment - Expanded to 600 runs and in the upscale theaters with a decent population of Gen Z, it’s pretty good. But it falls off pretty quickly as you get farther out from those hotspots. Looks like it could get to $2 million.
Whistle - Went 1200 runs and there’s nothing going on here, maybe $200k for the weekend.
Pillion - Went Exclusive NY and LA in the classic 4, and although NY is a little better than LA, all 4 theaters are very good. Looks like a psa of $50k or $60k.
The Holdovers - Of the 4 films of note from last weekend, Send Help and Shelter look like they’re holding up better than Iron Lung and Melania. Because Sunday will be soft, Send Help and Shelter would normally be down 45%, but will probably be down 50% or more. The other two look down 60% plus.