Weekend projections: it’s another Barbenheimer weekend at the box office

August 13, 2023

Barbie

The Barb-enheimer phenomenon continues unabated in theaters this weekend, with the two hits earning over $50 million between them, led by Barbie’s $33.7 million, which takes the film well past $500 million at the domestic box office. The Last Voyage of the Demeter is being left in the wake, with a modest $6.5-million debut.

Here’s how the domestic numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…



Barbie’s $33.7 million will be the 9th-biggest 3rd weekend for a movie in history (it had the 11th-biggest 3rd weekend last weekend). Once more, it is behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie on its comparable weekend—Mario earned $40.8 million on its fourth outing—but Barbie’s weekday performance means it’s still comfortably outpacing Mario in the head-to-head comparison chart between the two films. Barbie lead in that race has grown from $23.4 million last weekend to $35.4 million this weekend, and it looks increasingly likely that Barbie will top $600 million domestically.

Internationally, Barbie will earn another $45.1 million this weekend to take its international total to $657.6 million. With $1.184 billion globally, it looks set to become the highest-grossing film of 2023—Mario has racked up $1.358 million, so Barbie still has a bit to go. Notably, Barbie will pass $100 million at the UK box office this weekend.

Meg 2: The Trench is expected to drop 58% this weekend, which isn’t all that bad for an action horror movie, but will cause it to slip from second to fourth on the chart. Oppenheimer’s 35% decline will take it back into second place, with $18.8 million expected this weekend for $264.3 million in total to date. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem moves up a place too thanks to a very respectable 44% decline in its second weekend. It will end the weekend with $72.8 million domestically. It isn’t hitting as hard internationally, with just $21.9 million to date, but is set to top $100 million worldwide this week.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter wasn’t expected to have a great opening, and that’s how it’s turned out. Sunday morning’s projection from Universal has it coming in with $6.5 million, just a shade ahead of our model’s previews-only prediction of $6.34 million, but behind the final prediction of $7.3 million.

Although it didn’t hit the top 10, Jules will land with a projected $834,450 opening, almost right in line with our model’s $886,000 prediction.

In general our model had a very good weekend. Mutant Mayhem is its biggest miss, over-performing by an expected 25% compared to the model’s prediction. The adjustments I mentioned in Friday’s column seem to be working out well.

Market-wise, we’re headed for another weekend over $100 million in total, for the 19th weekend running. Blue Beetle and Strays will need good openings for that run to continue. The good news is that Blue Beetle tops our list of the most-anticipated movies, and our last monthly prediction had it debuting with around $40 million. If it manages that, we should see the strong market continue for one more weekend. After that, things look tough.

- Studio weekend projections
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash,