Weekend predictions: The Invitation favorite for narrow weekend win

August 26, 2022

The Invitation

The theatrical market officially hits the doldrums this weekend, with no films looking likely to top $10 million, and a combined weekend for all films hovering somewhere around the $50 million–$60 million mark—the lowest figure since February. Hopes ride on The Invitation and Three Thousand Years of Longing, both of which look like they will appeal to niche audiences that are too small to propel them to big debuts. The Invitation has the edge as we go into the weekend.

Once more, due to deadline pressures, this is an abbreviated prediction column. Normal service should be resumed next week.

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

The Invitation’s fundamentals prediction was $11.5 million, thanks primarily to Sony’s strong track record with horror movies. Its $775,000 in preview earnings on Thursday point to a lower weekend than that, with our previews model saying $7.3 million is what we should be expecting. Our final prediction is a weighted average of those two predictions and comes in at $8.31 million. It seems unlikely it’ll go much higher than that at this point, and it could end up a million or two lower.

We don’t have the benefit of preview numbers for Three Thousand Years of Longing, but the model thinks that $6.1 million would be a par score for its opening weekend. It’s a tricky film to predict, seeing as it’s a drama based on a short story, which doesn’t generally portend huge box office receipts (unless the source material is wildly popular to begin with). The distributor, United Artists, also doesn’t have as rich a track record as the major studios—although I should point out that UA has a very good record for the films it has distributed.

A performance like House of Gucci is the absolute best case scenario for Three Thousand Years, and that film opened with $14.4 million from almost 50% more theaters (3,471 vs. 2,436). Given the time of year, I could imagine the new film posting an $8 million opening, but $4 million is just as likely, and our model’s prediction of $6.1 million seems about right to me, with a high level of uncertainty.

With last week’s winner, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, likely to drop by at least 65% from its opening, I can’t rule out the possibility that Bullet Train or even Top Gun: Maverick will win the weekend. A win for Maverick in its 14th weekend in theaters would be virtually unprecedented, and looks very unlikely, if I’m honest. But it’s not completely outside the bounds of possibility.

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Top Gun: Maverick, Three Thousand Years of Longing, Bullet Train, The Invitation, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero (ラゴンボール超 スーパーヒーロー)