Weekend projections: Songbirds & Snakes headed for respectable mid-40s on debut

November 19, 2023

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is headed for a very respectable $44-million debut, according to Lionsgate’s Sunday-morning projection. While substantially less than the amount earned by the other films in the franchise, all of which started out with over $100 million, it’s right in line with our Friday-morning prediction, and sets the movie up for a good run, at least over the coming Thanksgiving week. With another $54.5 million projected internationally, we’re looking at a worldwide opening just shy of $100 million.

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

Songbirds & Snakes will come in almost exactly in line with our Friday prediction. We were way out for the next two films on the chart though. Trolls Band Together will come in with a little over $30 million, almost double our prediction, while The Marvels is crashing to just $10.2 million—a decline of almost 80% from its disappointing debut. Thanksgiving isn’t doing spectacular business, and it could top The Marvels, with both films projected to earn the same amount this weekend.

Next Goal Wins is also coming in with disappointing numbers. Disney projects it’ll manage $2.5 million this weekend, somewhat behind The Holdovers, its most direct competition. Both films will probably benefit from the holiday weekend, but Next Goal Wins has the worst theater average of any film in the top 10 and looks set to lose theaters rapidly after Thanksgiving.

Overall, we’ll sail past $100 million in total this weekend, and will actually do better than the comparable weekend last year, which was dominated by Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a film that played with virtually no competition until Avatar arrived just before Christmas. The good news for the next couple of weeks is that there’s a decent selection of movies already in theaters, and more to come.

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

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, The Marvels, Next Goal Wins, Trolls Band Together, The Holdovers, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Thanksgiving, Hunger Games