Weekend predictions: Can Free Guy keep box office recovery on track?
August 13, 2021
Free Guy finally gets its day in theaters this weekend at the fourth time of asking, and it should top the box office chart according to our model. But, as if arriving more than a year after its original release date and under the 20th Century Studios banner after Fox’s acquisition by Disney wasn’t enough, it also has to carry a large of part of the hopes of the theatrical business on its back after some shaky opening weekends and sharp drops for returning films in recent weeks. It will have some help from Don’t Breathe 2 and Respect, which are both also opening in wide release.
The model isn’t hugely enthusiastic about the chances for Free Guy, but it was expecting a solid weekend. That seems to be borne out with its Thursday previews of $2.2 million. The best pre-pandemic comparison for that performance is probably the $1.67 million earned by The Hitman’s Bodyguard on Thursday ahead of a $21.4 million weekend. If Free Guy hit that multiplier it would come in with $28 million this weekend, but we’ve seen recent films come in well behind that kind of performance. The Suicide Squad, for example, turned $4.1 million in previews into a $26.2-million opening weekend; and Black Widow made $13.2 million in previews and $80.4 million over its first full weekend.
Those performances suggest a weekend in the mid-teens for Free Guy, but this film shouldn’t be quite so front-loaded, and $20 million seems within reach. My suspicion is that it won’t quite make it, but as the analysis above shows anything over $16 million should be considered a victory at this point.
Expectations are a little lower for Don’t Breathe 2, which came in with $965,000 in previews on Thursday. The first Don’t Breathe earned $1.9 million from previews ahead of a $26.4 million weekend, so yesterday’s number points to something around $10 million for the weekend, assuming this installment is more front-loaded than the original. If it’s much more front loaded then it could well fall short of $10 million.
The model’s $11.1 million prediction is probably on the high side, but not by a huge amount.
Although it has plenty of good comps, Respect is a particularly tricky film to predict this weekend because there have been so few films like it released recently. Our model puts films into four categories: “action,” “family,” “date night,” and “general.” Respect falls somewhere between the “general” category and the “date night” category for my money, and I honestly couldn’t decide which was more appropriate. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that there have been so few date night movies recently (partly because they’re doing so poorly during the pandemic).
In the end I used a pandemic adjustment of 35%, which is the average of the general and date-night multipliers. I’m not particularly happy with that solution, but I couldn’t think of a better one.
The film’s $650,000 in previews on Thursday aren’t hugely predictive (biographical dramas don’t tend to be heavily front-loaded), but they do support the $9.1 million prediction above.
All in all, the model predicts the top eight will earn about 6% more than last weekend, which would be a welcome improvement. If Don’t Breathe 2 falls a little below the model’s prediction, then it’ll be left to Free Guy to take us over the line. I think it’ll just manage to do so.
One final note: this week I have introduced a modification to the way the model predicts the second weekend for major releases—specifically The Suicide Squad this weekend. As has been widely noted, these films are falling sharply from their opening numbers and we now have enough data to make a (hopefully) more accurate prediction. Based on how recent films have performed, the super hero action movie’s target is a 63% fall from last weekend.
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Filed under: Weekend Preview, The Suicide Squad, Black Widow, Free Guy, Respect, Don’t Breathe 2