Weekend predictions: Dungeons & Dragons poised for surprise weekend win
March 31, 2023
It’s too early to crown a winner at the box office this weekend, but Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is the favorite right now in what is looking to be an epic battle with John Wick: Chapter 4. Wick goes into its second weekend with almost $100 million already in the bank, but will most likely fall fairly steeply from its opening weekend, and good reviews could give D&D the momentum it needs to pull off a victory that looked unlikely just a week ago. There is one big caveat with this morning’s prediction though.
First, here’s what our model thought of Dungeons & Dragons going into the weekend:
The major players among the Dungeons & Dragons cast and crew have enough of a history in similar films to give the model a reasonable picture of the possibilities for this one. Paramount has also got a rich track record in adventure films, with Sonic the Hedgehog and The Lost City both good recent examples of franchise-launchers.
Those two recent Paramount films suggest an opening around $50 million would very much be a possibility in pre-pandemic days, which roughly translates into a $40 million-plus opening today. The model settled down around $26.8 million though, once it had taken into account the more modest history for directing partners Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (albeit on different types of film).
The Thursday preview number, suggests something better is on the cards…
Here’s the caveat.
The overall preview number (which we report on the Thursday daily chart) comes from both Thursday screenings, and earlier special screenings for the film. Paramount was good enough to break out those two groups, with the film earning $1.5 million from early screenings, and $4.1 million on Thursday.
Using the $4.1-million figure as the “preview” number in our model predicts a $32.9-million Thursday–Sunday opening weekend, based on previews alone. Adjusting for our original $26.8-million “fundamentals” prediction, and then adding back the $1.5 million in early screening earnings gives us a final prediction of $32.9 million. (If only the previews were taken into account, the model would predict $34.4 million.)
The caveat is that the preview numbers for the other films in the analysis don’t have the early screenings (if any) broken out. So this isn’t a complete apples-to-apples comparison. To the extent that there’s any inaccuracy, it will be underestimating the weekend for Dungeons & Dragons, although I think the effect will be small. Technically, it does add to the uncertainty in the prediction.
On a different note, The Lost City and Uncharted had Thursday-to-weekend multipliers well over 10. If Dungeons & Dragons manages that, it’ll sail past $40 million this weekend. My hunch is that it’ll end in the $35 million to $40 million range, but the model historically outperforms my hunches, so take that with a grain of salt. In any case, we’re looking at a good opening that exceeds the studio’s reported $30-million expectation.
Focus Features has a fairly inconsistent record over the past few years, mostly thanks to the pandemic creating a very unpredictable market for independent dramas. The model thinks A Thousand and One will earn between $1.5 million and $2 million this weekend. That seems a shade optimistic to me, but the film has stellar reviews and won the Grand Jury prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, so it has a shot at doing well if it can reach that elusive high-quality-drama audience.
Here’s what that model thinks the top 10 will look like.
If Dungeons & Dragons falls back to earth more quickly than the model (and I) expects, and John Wick: Chapter 4 has a better-than-expected hold in its second weekend, Wick could still win the weekend. Given that there’s some overlap in the audiences for each film, I think D&D will likely cannibalize ticket sales for John Wick, but it looks like it’ll be a tight race in any case.
Below those two, we’re looking at a tight three-way race for third place. Shazam! Fury of the Gods seems particularly likely to lose audience to Dungeons & Dragons, so could be in for another sharp decline. We’ll know more tomorrow morning.
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The other wide release with a shot at the top 10 this weekend is indie drama A Thousand and One.
Filed under: Weekend Preview, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, John Wick: Chapter 4, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, A Thousand and One, John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein