Weekend predictions: Barbie shooting for $80-million-plus second weekend

July 28, 2023

Barbie

All eyes remain on Barbie this weekend as it attempts to follow up its opening weekend, the 20th-best of all time, with something in the top 20 second weekends of all time. Based on how it’s been doing during the week, that seems like a good bet. It’ll have a bit of competition from Haunted Mansion this time around though, and perhaps more people will choose to watch Barbie or Oppenheimer this weekend, rather than both together. Even at the low end though, we’re still looking ahead to a very good weekend in theaters.

First up, here’s what the model thought of Haunted Mansion based on its fundamentals:

Jungle Cruise is the obvious point of comparison, and that did really well on its opening weekend, given what the model thought of the strength of the market for family films in July, 2021. More generally, Disney has been fairly hit-and-miss with movies partially based on existing IP, and a par score for Mansion would be around $32 million, per the model.

The preview number suggests it’ll land somewhere in that ballpark…

The key question is whether word of mouth will help this film keep going through the weekend. It’s only getting a 41% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, but is earning an 82%-positive rating from audiences. That probably isn’t enough for great word of mouth, and my hunch is that it’ll struggle to top $30 million, given the competition it’s facing.

Horror movie Talk to Me is A24’s piece of counter-programming for the weekend. The indie distributor usually scores something around $5 million on opening weekend with horror movies.

Talk to Me will be held back by playing in a smaller-than-usual 1,900 or so theaters (although we don’t have a final confirmed figure from A24, so it might creep into a few more locations). But its previews point to a potentially good opening…

$10 million seems like a possibility for this one, although its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, at 78%, is actually lower than Haunted Mansion’s. Critics are giving it a more positive 94% mark, which could draw people in.

The final new film that might make it into the top 10 is The First Slam Dunk from GKIDS.

The performance of anime films is very hard to predict at the best of times, and GKIDS has been fairly hit-and-miss historically. I’m just going to trust the model on this one, but it is worth noting that the film has made over $260 million internationally, including massive runs in Japan and China.

Here’s what the model thinks the top 10 will look like.

Strong weekday numbers point to drops of less than 50% for Barbie and Oppenheimer, which would be very impressive given their huge openings. If Barbie makes $84.1 million, that will be the 12th-best second weekend of all time. One reason for optimism is that The Super Mario Bros. Movie only dropped 37% in its second weekend earlier in the year. If Barbie did the same, it would top $100 million this weekend. I think that’s unlikely, but once a film gets to the end of the bell curve strange things can happen.

On that note, look out for Sound of Freedom, which the model thinks will decline just 17% this weekend and is likely to end in fourth place overall. That would take it past $150 million overall after four weekends.

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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Haunted Mansion, Barbie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Sound of Freedom, Oppenheimer, Eiga Slam Dunk, Talk To Me