Weekend predictions: it looks like Dragon Ball’s weekend

August 19, 2022

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero looks like it will come out an easy winner at the box office this weekend, based on a good track record for Anime titles in recent years and an excellent $4 million in previews on Thursday evening. The Idris Elba-led thriller Beast looks as though it’ll slot into second place.

Due to the release of our updated market prediction this morning, I’ve had to curtail this weekend’s prediction report. The numbers are the same as usual, but I don’t have the graphics this time. Normal service will be resumed next week.

Here’s what our model thinks about that top 10 as of Friday afternoon…

Dragon Ball’s final prediction is based on a fundamentals prediction of $22.8 million and a previews prediction of $24.4 million, which are in very close alignment. Anime films tend to be heavily front-loaded though, and this doesn’t look like a film that will have suffered from a lot of soldout shows on Thursday, given that it’s playing in somewhere between 3,000 and 3,950 theaters (reports vary). So my gut feeling is that it won’t make it quite to $20 million this weekend, however, the $22.8-million debut by Demon Slayer: Mugen Train could yet be beaten.

Beast’s prediction is based on a fundamentals analysis that pegged the film opening with $14 million and previews that point towards $12.2 million. That’s again in very close alignment, and I think the film should land somewhere close to the $12.7-million final prediction. That seems to me like a pretty good result for the film, given the timing of its release. It’s not a great result though, given the lack of competition.

Overall, the new releases should boost the total box office for the weekend, helped by all the remaining films in the top 10 hitting $2 million.

Bruce Nash

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Beast, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (ラゴンボール超 スーパーヒーロー), Idris Elba