Weekend predictions: weekend winner too close to call
June 23, 2023
Technically, any one of five movies stands a chance of finishing this weekend at the top of the box office chart, with newcomers No Hard Feelings and Asteroid City seeking to beat The Flash, Elemental and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse for the crown. The model thinks The Flash will win by a narrow margin, but there’s good reason to think Spider-Man will come out the winner, and No Hard Feelings could pull off a surprise victory.
Here’s how the model looked at No Hard Feelings coming into the weekend:
Our model’s baseline prediction feels about right to me, but No Hard Feelings posted pretty good preview numbers on Thursday for an R-rated comedy.
Cocaine Bear could prove to be a good comp here, and a $20-million-plus weekend does seem on the cards. I personally think it’ll fall a little short of that number, but it’s definitely made a good enough start to be in the running for a weekend win.
Meanwhile, Asteroid City started out with more modest ambitions, with a weekend around $10 million looking likely…
It too posted good preview numbers on Thursday though:
Given Wes Anderson’s fan base, I think this one might be quite front-loaded, but a weekend in the mid-teens looks likely, and there’s a good chance Anderson will have his best single weekend at the box office.
Here’s what the model thinks the top 10 will look like.
I’ve adjusted the model this weekend to hopefully improve its predictions for movies in their second weekend. Previously, it only took into account the change in theater count, which is generally very small for big studio films in their second weekend. It now factors in the legs of each film over the course of their first week in theaters. That reduces its prediction for The Flash and increases it marginally for Elemental. I still think it’s being overly optimistic about The Flash’s second weekend, and we might end up with no film hitting $20 million this weekend. If that’s the case, the weekend race is anybody’s to win, but Spider-Man probably has a slight edge as it continues its excellent run.
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Filed under: Weekend Preview, The Flash, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Elemental, No Hard Feelings, Asteroid City