Weekend estimates: Free Guy’s great start makes up for a generally weak market
August 15, 2021
An impressive $28.4-million opening for Free Guy will more than make up for weakness in the rest of the market to give us a welcome “up” weekend at the box office. Free Guy’s start beats The Suicide Squad’s debut last weekend, which will undoubtedly add fuel to the debate on the viability of releasing major films simultaneously in theaters and on streaming platforms—Free Guy gets a 45-day window before it lands exclusively on Disney+, while The Suicide Squad is already playing on HBO Max.
Free Guy’s opening is more than $12 million higher than our model’s prediction, and more than double what Ryan Reynolds’ previous pandemic release, The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife, made on its opening weekend in June. That improvement is probably partly due to the increased number of people going to theaters in general, but is also likely down to the film being a perfect vehicle for Reynolds and sporting a PG-13 rating instead of Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife’s R label.
Free Guy’s performance is actually so good that it’s the first film to beat the model’s prediction for what it would have done before the pandemic, albeit by a narrow margin: $28.4 million to $25.8 million. The previous best-pandemic-performer was Jungle Cruise, which opened with just $800,000 less than the model’s pre-pandemic expectation. Having two films put in those kind of numbers in the past couple of weeks is a good sign, but there’s clearly still trouble in the broader market.
The two films to come closest to their predictions, aside from Free Guy are actually this weekend’s other two new wide releases. Don’t Breathe 2 will slot into second place with $10.6 million or so, right in line with expectations, while Respect is just 3% below its predicted opening, with United Artists projecting an $8.8-million opening weekend as of Sunday morning.
The returning films are faring less well. In particular, The Suicide Squad joins a growing list of big-name films dropping precipitously in their second weekend. It will be down over 70% to around $7.5 million, per Warner Bros.. All the other films in the top eight will fall more than expected this weekend, which is possibly a sign that audiences are growing less enthusiastic about going to theaters right now.
Fortunately, Free Guy managed to haul in enough money this weekend to more than make up for weakness elsewhere and the top eight will earn 17% more this weekend than they did last weekend. Given that it looked going into August that The Suicide Squad would have to carry the industry through to the end of the Summer, something that clearly hasn’t panned out, the action comedy’s performance is a welcome shot in the arm.
Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
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Filed under: Weekend Estimates, The Suicide Squad, Jungle Cruise, Free Guy, Respect, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, Don’t Breathe 2, Ryan Reynolds