The Boxoffice Podium
Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | August 2 – 4, 2024
Week 31 | August 2 – 4, 2024
Top 10 3-Day Range | Weekend 31, 2024: $135M — $175M
1. Deadpool & Wolverine
Marvel Studios | Week 2
Weekend Range: $80 – $100M
The Boxoffice Company’s Showtimes Dashboard Marketshare: 34%
Pros
- The momentum keeps getting stronger since Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine blew past the all-time R-rated records last weekend. After a projected $205M opening frame, Monday actuals from Disney pegged the take at $211,435,291 million, making it the 6th highest domestic debut ever. The global debut also shot up from $438.3M to $444.1M, rocketing past the 2022 bow of Avatar: The Way of Water ($439M) to become the biggest global opening since 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($452M).
- Weekday grosses continue at a pace, breaking R-rated records for a Monday ($24,427,969 million) and a Tuesday ($25.3M, +4%). Global take is now over $500 million, with Ryan Reynolds telling THR that he considers Deadpool & Wolverine “the first four-quadrant, R-rated film.” Domestic tally as of Tuesday is $261.1M (third highest-grossing X-Men movie ever behind first two Deadpool‘s) with global at $545.8M (fifth biggest X-Men title). Our prediction panel has the film dropping in the over 50-60% range, which will still mean a huge second-weekend haul. Critical perception was a little mixed on the film, but with an “A” CinemaScore, we expect word-of-mouth will keep driving business and food & beverage/merch sales.
Cons
- The biggest figure to look at for the downside is the Friday/Sunday numbers, which went from $96.1M to $53.6M. That meant Marvel fanboys (and girls) were frantic to see the film before all the surprises got spoiled online or at the water cooler. With the cameo cats out of the bag at this point and the satiric movie does little to move the MCU’s current Multiverse Saga arc forward, the incentive to see it has certainly dropped among the hardcore fanbase. The studio is now counting on general audiences and repeat business to drive Deadpool & Wolverine from here on out. As an example, Inside Out 2 opened to far less than the new Deadpool escapade ($154.2M), but its subsequent drops have all been in the -30s to -40s, with the second weekend at $101.2M (-34% drop). That Pixar sequel wasn’t front-loaded but has become the #1 movie of 2024 through repeat business, with spoilers, cameos, and other franchise gimmicks not an issue for that younger-skewing animation audience. As much as Ryan Reynolds would like to think his new movie is “four-quadrant,” it isn’t, and that will likely show in subsequent weeks.
Here’s how the second frame drops for previous Deadpool/Wolverine solo movies looked…
- Deadpool (2016) – $56.4M (-57% drop)
- Deadpool 2 (2018) – $43.4M (-65% drop)
- Logan (2017) – $38.1M (-57% drop)
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) – $26.4M (-69% drop)
- The Wolverine (2013) – $21.3M (-60% drop)
2. Trap
Warner Bros. | New
Opening Weekend Range: $18 – $25M
The Boxoffice Company’s Showtimes Dashboard Marketshare: 10%
Pros
- Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan is the king of the high-concept thriller, with two films in the all-time best-performing thriller Top 10 (The Sixth Sense, Signs). His new project, Trap, takes the serial killer trope and moves it into a new arena… an arena. The concert venue is the titular trap for the police to capture the killer, played by Josh Hartnett, a 2000s heartthrob whose visibility is on the upswing after his role in last year’s Oppenheimer. The genre itself is in vogue, with ticket buyers flocking in droves to serial killer thriller Longlegs, so this could be a perfect time for a film like Trap to spring itself on unsuspecting audiences. A PG-13 rating means this is excellent counter-programming for older kids and teens who can’t get in to see Deadpool sever arms for 2-hours.
Cons
- M. Night Shyamalan is no stranger to nepotism, with his 24-year-old daughter Ishana Night Shyamalan getting roasted for making her directorial debut earlier this year with the poorly received The Watchers. The optics of having her dad as a producer and prominent in the advertising only made things worse. Now, M. Night is doubling down by making his daughter Saleka Shyamalan the central music performer in Trap rather than an actual pop star. While some early social reactions praise Saleka’s performance, the gambit could backfire when true reviews actually surface (as of Wednesday, they have not). The worst-case scenario would be akin to when Francis Ford Coppola cast his daughter Sofia Coppola in a highly-criticized part for Godfather III, which took years for the eventually successful filmmaker Sofia to shake off.
While the elder Shyamalan has had a near-decade run of very successful self-financed original thrillers (Trap is also self-financed), there’s no denying that it’s been to steadily diminishing returns. Here’s how the last five Shyamalan films opened/performed…
- Knock at the Cabin (2023) – $14.1M opening/$35.3M domestic
- Old (2021) – $16.8M opening/$48.2M domestic
- Glass (2019) – $40.3M opening/$111M domestic
- Split (2017) – $40M opening/$138.1M domestic
- The Visit (2015) – $25.4M opening/$65.2M domestic
3. Twisters
Universal | Week 3
Weekend Range: $15 – $20M
The Boxoffice Company’s Showtimes Dashboard Marketshare: 12%
Pros
Unlike Deadpool & Wolverine, Twisters‘ second frame posted an audience increase from Friday ($10.3M) to Sunday ($11.11M), which is encouraging. This is still much more of a general audience movie than the R-rated competition, while Trap may underperform and allow Twisters to hold the #2 spot. We’re looking at less than a 50% drop in this third frame, which is good news.
Cons
That -57% tumble from the first to the second weekend certainly isn’t what Universal was hoping for from a title that started very strong. This weekend will tell us if that drop was due to the Deadpool & Wolverine debut, or a decline in interest for Twisters.
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