Weekend projections: The Bad Guys’ strong hold keeps it on top
May 1, 2022
An impressive second-weekend decline of just 33% will keep The Bad Guys at the top of the chart this weekend, according to Universal’s Sunday-morning projection. With another $16.1 million in the bank, the animated comedy will end the weekend at $44 million domestically and over $118 million worldwide. Strong word of mouth and limited direct competition could take it a lot further over the next month or so.
Here’s how the domestic numbers look this morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…
CinemaCon disrupted our usual schedule for posting predictions, but our model ran as usual, and the numbers for the weekend stack up fairly well across the market as a whole, with the top 10 earning 4% more than predicted. That’s 31% down from last weekend, which is a modest drop considering there’s no huge new release this frame.
The one wide release that’s new this weekend, Memory, is headed for a disappointing $3.1 million. That has to be a case of a saturated market for Liam Neeson action movies, of which we have seen five in the last 19 months. The four that opened wide in theaters all debuted with between $3 million and $3.6 million (the fifth, The Ice Road, was a Netflix Original). Given the recovery of the theatrical market since Honest Thief posted $3.6 million on its opening weekend in October, 2020, Neeson is on a downward trend. Or, at least isn’t drawing in anyone beyond his core base at the moment.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is the standout film at the moment, and will increase its gross this weekend to about $5.5 million, taking it to $35.5 million in total. Doctor Strange might take the wind out of its sails a bit next weekend, but it’ll still cruise past $50 million before its domestic run is done, and could go further than that—it’s still only playing in 2,213 theaters, so there’s room to expand.
Also doing better than expected in their second weekends are The Northman and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. They will both struggle to maintain their place in theaters unfortunately, but their good numbers are a sign that they have good word of mouth, and also that the market is getting more robust.
What the strength of the market means for Doctor Strange is something we’ll be looking at closely in the coming week. It looks like a good bet to top The Batman and claim the biggest opening weekend of the year, but the general feeling from people I spoke to at CinemaCon last week was that no-one quite knows where it’ll land.
- Studio weekend projections
Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide
Filed under: Liam Neeson