Weekend projections: Mean Girls wins a quiet weekend as I.S.S. meets low expectations

January 21, 2024

I.S.S.

Bad weather and a lack of major new movies is keeping folks home. In spite of that, this weekend is mostly meeting its low expectations at the box office, with Mean Girls staying at the top of the chart, even though it’s having a slightly disappointing second weekend, and I.S.S. coming in around its very low expectations. With the remaining Holiday films in slow decline, the current reported box office makes this the slowest weekend since November 3, when Five Nights at Freddy’s held on to top spot in spite of a steep second-weekend decline.

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



Mean Girls’ 59% decline is quite high for a musical, particularly given its solid reviews. But it’s only hitting a 65%-positive score with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, which means word of mouth isn’t that great. Bad weather and mediocre word of mouth (and a comparison with MLK weekend) add up to a sharp fall-off this time around, but it won’t have much direct competition next weekend, so three weekends at the top of the chart is on the cards.

The Beekeeper, meanwhile, is having a unexpectedly good hold this weekend after opening a little ahead of expectations. It’ll end the weekend with a littler over $31 million in the bank domestically and it has a long way to go internationally. A sequel to this one seems like a solid bet.

New release I.S.S. is landing broadly in line with expectations, and will have the third-best opening for a Logan Lucky ($7.6 million) and Megan Leavey ($3.8 million). While reviews have been broadly favorable, the film is probably not doing quite enough to hold on to theaters, even with limited competition. It could do solid business in the home market though.

In limited release, concert movie Queen Rock Montreal will pick up an excellent $2 million in 387 IMAX locations, and just miss out on a place in the top 10. Origin opens with $875,000 or so for Neon from 125 locations. That’ll give it the second-best theater average on the chart (behind the Queen concert movie), and is well ahead of our prediction of about $450,000. What it can do as it expands remains an open question.

This weekend’s major milestone award goes to Anyone But You, which will pass $100 million today. It has hit $64.2 million at the domestic box office, and $36 million internationally.

- Studio weekend projections
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide
- Holiday-season musical comparisons

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