Mother's Day weekend 2026

It’s all good news this weekend, and we’ll have another weekend where we will add a lot of cushion to the YTD total compared to last year. Because we have a good roster of holdovers compared to the films we had last year (that were a couple weeks older and were beginning to expire), plus we’ve got 3 films that lean nicely into Mother’s Day (we had none last year), we might get close to doubling last year’s total weekend. We’ll need every penny this weekend, and because the films we have now are so good we’ll be okay next weekend; but starting Memorial Day it’s gonna get a little weird for a couple of weeks, and we don’t have a great answer to the record breaking box-office we had last year.

Mother’s Day can be a pretty good day at the box-office, but if we don’t have the films that make sense it’s a little better than the normal Sunday this time of year. Last year on Mother’s Day the new titles were Shadow Force, Fight or Flight and Clown in a Cornfield, and the holdovers were Thunderbolts*, Sinners, Minecraft and The Accountant 2. Soooo, it didn’t scream ‘Mom will love this’, but more than likely generated a response from Mom that ranged from ‘well they did something’ to being ‘quiet Mom for a couple of months, and no, nothing is wrong’. But between Prada, Michael and Sheep Detective we have titles that should generate a really nice Sunday this year, and having three different flavors of Mom movies might be a tide that lifts all boats and should be part of a really good box-office weekend where we have 3 movies grossing over $30 million.

Being around for as long as I have, and watching Theatrical trends come and go, it’s amazing to see how certain genres have their day and then fade. But occasionally they come back, and having seen both sides of the issue it usually boils down to the same issue as everything else; it’s the movies, stupid. But it’s a little more nuanced than that; it’s not only the quality of the movie, but it’s the consumer perception of the genre based on recent movies in the same genre. We saw the Action Buddy Comedy have it’s day in the 80’s, and then we kept recycling the same movie and the consumer (who can often say ‘more, please’), after seeing some recycled ideas said ‘we saw that, so pass’. Comedies used to be a Theatrical staple as well, but after some R rated runaway success’s like The Hangover and 21 Jump Street, every mediocre Comedy script added some ‘fucks’ and some nudity and got greenlit, but they still weren’t funny and it soiled the perception of the genre for the consumer. Because of their history, both of these genres aren’t attractive these days, but it’s always possible they can come back if we can make a couple good movies that improve the trust by the consumer.

30 years ago, back in the 90’s, we started using Video Game IP for Theatrical; and it’s kinda funny to see what the first toe dips were (IP wise) back then. The first one of note was Super Mario Brothers followed by Street Fighter. Weird, right? But even weirder was the IP that finally opened to a decent number was……Mortal Kombat. It opened to $23 million back in August 1995 and started a wave of Video Game IP based films that crescendoed with Tomb Raider opening to $47 million in 2001. The genre had it’s successes for the next couple of years, but as we got closer to the 20 teens, something happened that made Video Game IP’s a tough sell from the Theatrical point of view. The game technology evolved enough to where the player could control the narrative while playing the game, so a movie version struggled to deliver a better storytelling experience, and the idea of film makers delivering a satisfying storytelling experience got tougher. So it was difficult to get the gamers to put down the controller and go to a theater, even though they said they’ll do it ‘after one more game’.

But as much as the Gamer experience was bringing a new level of competition to generating a Theatrical Purchase for a Video Game IP, (as usual) we did something as an industry that probably held this genre down for several years; during the twenty aughts we made everything R. We seem to think ‘edgy and violent’ is the way to go, so from 2001 when Tomb Raider opened to $47 million to 2010 where Prince of Persia opened to $30 million, 9 of the 11 Video Game IP’s of note were R. So we were making movies for a demo group that wasn’t really interested, while ignoring the demos (kids) that were probably gettable. And because we were making movies in a genre that were for a demo that wanted to do other things with their spare time, the whole genre lost it’s luster and a lot of really big Video Game IP’s went splat at the box-office. The ones that were doing okay figured out a way to make sense as a movie, like Resident Evil leaning towards it’s Horror roots, and consistently opened in the 20’s. But looking at the next 15 years after Tomb Raider, we seemed to squander the opportunity.

Once we started leaning back into IP’s that were more general audience friendly, and leveraged the IP’s with ideas that made a Theatrical purchase logical, the genre picked back up; we started telling stories with aspects that seemed like fun at the movies (instead of a rehash of the game), the genre started growing again. Angry Birds was the first to start the ball rolling, and the Pigs were presented as a marketing angle that promised a decent amount of comedy if you bought a ticket. Next came Detective Pikachu, and moved the idea forward that it was a story that was familiar to the players, but offered a better storytelling experience than just playing the game. Of course you know where it went from there, Super Mario, Minecraft, Five Nights at Freddy’s; we’ve figured out a way to leverage the IP without competing with it as a game.

Now that we’re seeing Video Game IP’s open to blockbuster numbers, there’s one part of the genre that was still lagging, and it was the one that might have ruined it all before. There has never been an R rated film based on Video Game IP that opened to over $30 million, and Resident Evil: Afterlife is the best of the bunch at $26.7 million. In fact, because the Resident Evil franchise knew it’s lane a little better than the rest of the IP’s that went the R rated route, it occupies 4 of the top 5 places in opening weekends for R rated Video Game IP, but they are all in the 20’s. But the one that is in there at #3 was the IP that started it all back in 1995, the reboot of Mortal Kombat in 2021. But we didn’t know how big this IP could be this time around, because it got Kilar’d back in 2021 (with the rest of the WB slate) and only opened to $23 million because it was day and date with MAX +.

It’s clearly going to become the new #1 for an R rated Video Game IP, but there were some expectations set for this film since the trailer that were probably uninformed (not shocking for our sector). Because this was a R rated Video Game IP, and wasn’t PG13 and it wasn’t Horror or Sci-fi; it will attract an older Video Game IP audience that usually behaves differently than those other genres and ratings; and folks throwing big numbers around didn’t understand that anything over $26 million was going to be outside the data, would be an outlier and would be a great achievement. We’ve seen WB outperform the norm (and the edge of the database) lately, taking Final Destination and The Conjuring to opening numbers above where the previous films opened. But no matter where this ends up, it’s also getting an assist from the films that got it here, and this success might make things easier for other R rated Video Game IPs, like Resident Evil. But it takes a couple of good movies to gain trust with the consumer; Angry Birds, Pikachu, Mario Brothers, Minecraft, it’s the movies, stupid.

Anyway,

Mortal Kombat II - I’m going to be cagey about Mortal Kombat, I’m not sure where the gross is going and I’m not sure it’s going to end up as #1, and it might not even be close. Clearly they had a great opening day yesterday, and were just behind another movie that WB broke out higher than the series had gone before; Final Destination. But this is Video Game IP and that’s horror, and there are some key differences in audience. The biggest problem with this genre is it’s not super tag along friendly, especially for Adults. It’s a little binary, and even though it’s a massive IP in the genre, if you’re not into it, you’re not into it. We’re seeing that already in the grosses today and I’m wary that WB did a sensational job of getting the fans to go, but it was a really tough job to expand the base. But if you use Final Destination as a guide, it’s saying low 40’s. However, using Video Game IP like Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, it’s less than half of that film, and that would put it in the low 30’s. But the difference between the two comps is this isn’t growing like a Horror movie usually does, so it’s much flatter than Final Destination was; but when you go to a Video Game IP, it was a little less than half of Five Nights at Freddy’s was at the opening bell this morning, and it’s still a little less than Five Nights at Freddy’s was at this point of the afternoon. So it’s kind of telling us what it is already. And Horror usually goes up a little on Saturday, but the Video Game IP’s go down (that’s the no tag along/walk up issue), so we probably won’t know until tomorrow which direction this is going. So the range is low/mid 30’s to low/mid 40’s (like I said, I’m being cagey), but the big problem here was expectations. Let’s assume this is somewhere in the middle of what I think and it’s in the high 30’s, there will be folks saying..‘oh, WB isn’t what they were last year’. No, they are doing the same thing they did last year because this is going to beat the highest weekend in the genre by a lot, it was the expectations that were faulty.

But one other aspect here that might be worth talking about. If the Thursday gross here is a much larger portion of the weekend than the norm, and the overall gross isn’t that much better than it was in 2021, should there be a conversation about Thursday openings? Back in 2021, because of the Day and Date, they didn’t have Thursday shows. We should compare the two films opening weekend and since this is such a fan driven genre, would it be better to force those fans to Friday and at least have a shot at some tag alongs?

The Devil Wears Prada 2 - It’s funny how I’ll bring something up here and I’ll get a lot of responses that say I’m crazy or wrong (both happen a lot), but I got a lot of responses about my fashion sense (or lack thereof) last week. They ranged from ‘understated works for you’ (I think that’s good?) to ‘consider buying a second outfit to wear once in a while’. And then I look at the news on Tuesday and see the photos of the stuff people wore to the Met Ball that looked like they were serving out the penalty for coming in last in their Fantasy Football League, and I thought to myself ‘I’m good’. Anyway, grosses. This is probably going to win the weekend and maybe by a lot. It’s only a little bit behind Mortal Kombat II right now and even though this is older female in skew and should stop growing around the 7pm shows, Mortal Kombat is all pre-sales and probably won’t grow much either. But Prada should get the normal Adult Saturday bounce tomorrow and history tells us that Mortal Kombat will more than likely go down. And then Sunday should be very very good, and might even go up from Saturday, but I’m not sure how Mortal Kombat will fit into the Mother’s Day equation. But driven by Sunday, this should have a crazy good holdover and end up in the low 40’s.

Michael - Lionsgate did a really good job in the chase campaign this week and that’s showing up int the grosses today. What didn’t really get reported last week was that even though Prada had a sensational weekend, on Saturday Michael only grossed a few dollars less, so this should be great this weekend and clearly should be a really good fit on Sunday. Figure it’s down 40% for a sensational 3rd weekend in the low 30’s.

The Sheep Detective - This well reviewed film is a little soft today, but there are no kids out of school so that makes sense. It should bounce back tomorrow and it should be a terrific Red State option on Sunday, so figure it’s in the low teens with an upside.

Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard Hit Me Soft The Tour - On the heels of the success of both the Taylor Swift and Beyonce films, we have a new angle on the concert film experience in 3D. I had the pleasure of experiencing this in person Wednesday (at the Village Westwood, and it’s really great to see that venue back in our quiver) with fans and it seems like there’s a ’there there’ with the 3D aspect. It really works and without knowing the economics, shooting concerts in 3D might develop as its own genre and could build a following. Of course the old guy joke would be ’there’s an audience there for the people who were actually at the show, but didn’t see the show because they were too busy making a crappy recording of it on their phone, so it would be fresh content for them’. Hard to say where this is going to go over the weekend because they could run through the fanship quickly, but for now it looks like about $7 million for the weekend.