Refresh for chart and more analysis No one can complain that nobody went to the movies this weekend, because the major studios didn’t really give them a reason to come out. That’s because there aren’t any new wide releases as the majors became fearful about Omicron’s impact coupled with a historically lackluster domestic box office period. This weekend with roughly $34.7M for all movies is the lowest since Sept. 24-26; that’s when Shang-Chi was in its 4th weekend with $13M and Universal’s Dear Evan Hansen died with a $7.4M opening, amounting to a $38.8M weekend for all titles. Next weekend, Lionsgate hopes to lure people out with Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall and Paramount’s Jackass Forever, both looking at double low-to-mid teen digits, that is before their final week media blitz ensues.
In the meantime, we can gaze at how Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home is intent on beating Avatar‘s 3rd place of all-time domestic box office record ($760.5M), which by the end of Sunday will be $25.3M away from taking out the James Cameron sci-fi movie; Spidey’s cume to stand at $735.3M. As we told you last weekend, if Spider-Man: No Way Home is going to deep-six the Na’vi, it’s in a box office grossing course that’s similar to Star Wars: Force Awakens. And that’s what it looks like is happening.
Weekend 7 of No Way Home looks to file $11M (-21%), which is a very similar amount of case as Force Awakens at the same period in time, $11.1M. Sony is saying $10.4M right now, but we’ll see where it is by tomorrow AM. Spider-Man’s 43rd day in release made $2.75M, which is 12% ahead of the $2.46M that Force Awakens did on its 43rd day of play. The Jon Watts-directed MCU title is also booked in more theaters than Force Awakens at the same point in time; 3,675 locations to 2,556. Between the last weekend in January and the end of President’s Day weekend, Force Awakens pulled in $20.44M. When all is said and done, I’m sure Sony would love to see this movie beating Avatar.
More trumpeting for Sony: Ghostbusters: Afterlife is very close to passing Paul Feig’s all-femme 2016 edition, now at $128M. The movie is look at about $761K in weekend 11 in the No. 8 spot. Afterlife has roughly $350K left to go before it passes that Kristen Wiig-Kate McKinnon-Melissa McCarthy-Leslie Jones comedy.
Paramount/Spyglass Media’s Scream is eyeing a $6.65M third weekend, down 46% in second place for a running total of $61.4M. The fifth title is pacing 14% behind Scream 2 and 12% behind Scream 3, both of which passed $100M. The industry feeling is that this one will definitely fall short despite being a profitable title for the Melrose Lot and Spyglass.
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