Weekend prediction: Haunting in Venice and The Nun go head to head

September 15, 2023

A Haunting in Venice probably has enough gas in the tank to beat The Nun II and top the box office chart this weekend. But with a modest $1.2 million from previews yesterday for the Hercule Poirot mystery, it could be a close-run thing. The other new wide releases, The Inventor and Camp Hideout might reach their niche audiences, but are unlikely to make a big splash on what it often the slowest weekend of the year at the box office.

First, here’s a look at our model’s assessment of the box office potential for A Haunting in Venice.

The general consensus is that Death on the Nile was a box office dud when it was released in February last year. Its opening weekend was $12.9 million—less than half that of Murder on the Orient Express—and it only collected $45 million in total at the domestic box office.

However, our model measured the market for a film like Death on the Nile as very weak at the time, and its opening after adjusting for market conditions was actually right in line with its predecessor. Based on the performance of the first two films, the model thinks $30 million would be a par score for A Haunting in Venice under ideal circumstances. After adjusting for current market conditions (currently estimated at 75% of pre-pandemic strength), the model thinks a debut in the low $20 millions would be about right for this film.

Audience enthusiasm has been fairly muted so far though, which knocks a few million off the model’s prediction, with something a little less than $20 million its next-to-final word on the matter.

The final clue the model uses to predict opening weekend is the Thursday preview number, which looks a little weaker than that…

The numbers that stand out here are the preview number for Haunting in Venice, $1.2 million, compared to the previews for Death on the Nile, virtually identical at $1.1 million. The previews-to-weekend multiplier has a tendency to fall over the course of a franchise, so there’s reason to suspect that A Haunting in Venice will have a multiplier closer to 11.72 than the franchise average of 15.40. If it does, we’d end up with a $14-million opening for the latest from Kenneth Branagh.

The model tries to take all factors into account, and ends up with a predicted $18.7 million for the weekend. I wouldn’t be surprised if it falls a bit short of that number though.

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

If A Haunting in Venice does run out of steam as the weekend progresses, The Nun II has a pretty good chance of at least coming close to winning the weekend. I would give Hercule Poirot about an 75% chance of winning the weekend based on what we’ve seen so far.

The other new wide releases aren’t expected to hit the top ten. There’s always an upside for a film that playing in 700 or 800 theaters, as is the case with The Inventor and Camp Hideout. However, Blue Fox Entertainment’s best opening weekend to date was posted by The Railway Children Return, which earned $245,904 from 923 theaters this time last year. That’s a reasonable target for The Inventor.

Roadside Attractions are a more established theatrical player, and their film Family Camp opened with $1.4 million from 854 theaters in May last year. That film had the benefit of attracting a faith-based audience in a way that Camp Hideout probably won’t, but there’s just a chance that their new film could sneak a place in the top ten.

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Bruce Nash

Filed under: Kenneth Branagh