5 movies battling it out on a busy weekend; all look to land between $15–25M

Resident Evil ended up at $60.2M last weekend, just inside the upwards-revised $60–70M we were calling, and it has already out-grossed every other film in the franchise. The weekdays have been solid too, with Tuesday at $6.9M and $16.7M across Monday to Wednesday, which is more than a quarter of the opening weekend and a good sign for the hold.

Horror second weekends are brutal this year. Scream 7 opened to a similar $63.6M in February and fell 69% to $20.0M, and Backrooms dropped 68% after its $81.4M start. The difference here is word of mouth: with reviews in the 90s and a B+ CinemaScore, this one looks more like Weapons, which dropped just 44% in its second weekend last August. The only thing keeping it from a hold that good is just how much competition there is this weekend, which is why we see it falling closer to 60%. Either way, it’ll cruise past $100M this weekend on its way to $150M+, a fantastic result here that is leagues bigger than the franchise high.

Seven years after it opened to $357.1M, Endgame is back, and Disney has turned the re-release into an event with new mid- and post-credit teasers for Avengers: Doomsday ahead of its December 18 release. Tracking has been all over the place, anywhere from high teens up to $30M, and it’s a genuine toss-up whether this or Resident Evil takes #1.

While presales point to a genuine possibility at $30M, we ultimately think this ends up more front loaded with less walk-in sales over the weekend as it stays presales heavy, and so we’re being more conservative and looking at around $25M. Anything over $15M is genuinely great for a re-release, so whether it comes in #1 or #2, it’s a great result and points towards building excitement for Doomsday in December.

Robert Pattinson playing Chris Hansen in a movie about To Catch a Predator was always going to get attention, but this one has been surging hard in the last two weeks to a much higher number than anyone saw it - potentially cracking $20M this weekend. It’s sitting at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 68 on Metacritic, and the Oscar talk around Pattinson has given it a push most A24 dramas never get.

Tracking started in the $7–12M ish range and has climbed into the high teens, with some pointing to $20M+. We think it gets there or close to it and either way it’s a clear win on a $15M budget. Civil War’s $25.5M is probably a stretch, but it would still easily be A24’s second-biggest opening of the year behind Backrooms, and well ahead of past A24 breakouts like Hereditary ($13.6M) and Talk to Me ($10.4M). We expect it to hold up better than usual for an A24 movie too, thanks to what looks to be strong word of mouth and a potential Oscar nomination for Pattinson (his first ever; long overdue in our humble opinion).

DreamWorks’ new original, from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish director Joel Crawford, is still sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 72 on Metacritic, easily the best reviewed film of the weekend. Unfortunately, the tracking has been going the other way, drifting down from $19–29M a month ago to now closer to $15M.

The Wild Robot opened on this exact weekend in 2024 to $35.8M, so it’s possible there’s more upside here than tracking suggests, but the more realistic comps are The Bad Guys 2 ($22.0M) and Elio ($20.8M), and both of those had more to work with. We’re not seeing it hit $20M. The good news is with reviews this good, expect it to stick around as the word of mouth grows, so let’s not write this one off until we see how it holds up next weekend. Still, it’s safe to say this did not manage to break out and is now looking to try and become at least a modest hit, at best.

Brad Pitt and David Ayer last teamed up on Fury, which opened to $23.8M in October 2014 on its way to $85.8M. This one is a very different pitch, a survival film about a former special forces soldier and his combat dog stranded in Alaska, and the reviews are strong at 89% and a 69 on Metacritic.

The closest comp is actually Dog, which opened to $14.9M in 2022 and legged out to $61.8M. Tracking and presales do suggest this one comes in a little higher than our range, or at least on the higher side of our range, but with so much competition this weekend, this feels like the least buzzy or “need to see” and so may take a backseat. We’ll see what happens as it does have a shot at coming close to $20M - but we’re thinking it lands closer to the $12–15M range. That’s good for cinemas and a solid start for the genre, but less so for the distributor thanks to the oddly large $80M budget. It’ll need at least $150M worldwide to even start thinking about a breakeven, which is a tough ask.

Last weekend was right in line with what we were expecting, falling 59% to $12.2M, and the weekdays have been down 45–50% week over week since. With Forgotten Island taking some of the family audience and Primetime and Heart of the Beast pulling adults, expect something close to a 45% drop and $6–7M. That keeps it on track for our model’s $68.2–76.2M, likely closer to the low end.

The Odyssey lost most of its IMAX screens last weekend and still only dropped 35%, which says a lot about how sticky this one is. Expect a similar fall to around $3–3.5M, putting it around $616M after Sunday on its way to roughly $620M.

Spider-Man should feel Endgame more than anyone, since it’s the same audience and a lot of the same premium screens. We’re expecting something closer to a 45% drop and $3–4M, which should get it right to $950M by Sunday or early next week, extending its lead over The Force Awakens’ $936.7M for the biggest domestic run of all time.