Weekend predictions: a three-way race for box office crown

September 29, 2023

Expend4bles

Any one of three new movies could finish top of the box office chart this weekend, with virtually nothing separating our predictions for their opening weekends. The Creator, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie and Saw X all look like they will come in with around $20 million, which will easily be enough to dislodge The Nun II from the top of the charts. There are also a couple of dark horses that could disrupt the race.

I’ll quickly run through our predictions for the three films officially being released today, in the order that our model thinks they will end up on the final chart.

That means starting with Saw X:

Our model only uses films released in the past 10 years wherever possible, which means we’re looking at the last two Saw movies as comps. After adjusting for theater counts, market strength and audience buzz, we end up with a prediction a little short of $20 million.

Thursday’s previews were pretty good though…

I think the model might be being a little generous on its final prediction as Thursday-to-weekend multipliers have generally been fairly low since the pandemic, and this is the tenth film in the franchise. But a multiplier of 10 would take the film to $20 million, which seems a good bet.

Meanwhile, in an entirely different cinematic universe, PAW Patrol is looking to match the performance of its predecessor:

There were no preview numbers for The Mighty Movie, so we just have the baseline prediction to go on. $20 million seems like a very doable number for this film to me.

That leaves, The Creator…

This is a hard film to predict, with reviews and word of mouth likely to play quite a big part in its success. The model thinks it could have good legs based on the performance of previous similar films, but had an opening just slightly under $20 million pegged for it.

That seems about right now we have the preview numbers…

With those three predictions in, here’s what the model thinks that top 10 will look like.

The bottom line is that it looks as though it will be close at the top of the chart. Really, any one of the new films could take the crown, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an effective tie as of Sunday morning and the final winner not know until Monday. All things considered, Saw X is the slight favorite as of Friday morning.

Two more films could theoretically put a spanner in the works. Dumb Money expands into close to 3,000 theaters this weekend, which gives it a longshot chance of topping the chart. The model thinks it will fall well short of the top three though.

Finally, The Blind, a biography of Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson, pulled off a surprise daily win on Thursday with an opening day of $839,642. It won on a bit of a technicality, since Saw X and The Creator earned more from their previews yesterday. We weren’t tracking The Blind, since we were expecting a one-night engagement. Unsurprisingly, Fathom Events has extended that to a full week, and the film could feature in the top 10.

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Filed under: Weekend Preview, The Nun II, The Creator, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, Saw X, Dumb Money, The Blind