Weekend prediction: Predator: Badlands shoots for $30-million-plus opening

A terrible run of form at the box office looks like it will come to an end this weekend, thanks to a relatively strong opening for Predator: Badlands. The sci-fi action movie seems set to have a debut weekend over $30 million, with something close to the $33.2 million earned by Tron: Ares in its sights.

Here’s how our model saw Badlands going into the weekend:

Its previews are pointing to towards an opening slightly above expectations, although note that we don’t have a breakdown on how much was earned from Wednesday special screenings versus Thursday previews…

Basically, the model is forecasting a weekend almost identical to Tron: Ares’ opening. That’s assuming some momentum due to good word of mouth. We’ll have to see if that pans out, but an opening weekend over $30 million seems like a very good bet right now.

The boxing film Christy is the latest in an increasingly long line of real-life dramas looking for awards season glory. Sydney Sweeney is the actor looking to bolster their acting cred in this one…

The preview numbers look decent, but the model is unimpressed…

This is a case of the model going with the trend, and assuming slightly soft preview numbers will lead to a softer weekend overall. That hasn’t been a bad assumption recently (see The Smashing Machine as a prime example). It is rare for a drama to earn less than five times its preview number over opening weekend, so $2 million looks safe to me, and $3 million or more still on the cards.

Another drama with award aspirations opening this weekend is Nuremberg…

We have preview numbers for Nuremberg, and they don’t look great.

Again, the model is going with the trend and predicting quite a low opening for this movie. I think the $1.07-million number above is very pessimistic, and something closer to $2 million is likely. As the comparable openings above show, a low Thursday number for a drama getting a wide release usually leads to an opening between $1.5 million and $3 million. The older demographics of the likely audience for this film also points towards relatively longer legs through the weekend.

Finally, we have Die, My Love, from MUBI…

We don’t have any preview numbers for this one, so the prediction above will have to suffice. Most likely this one will land with somewhere around the same numbers as Christy and Nuremberg, although maybe the star power of Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson will draw in a bigger crowd than expected.

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

If Predator: Badlands comes anywhere close to our prediction this morning, we’ll see a healthy increase in theater attendance this weekend compared to last weekend’s dismal numbers. There’s still a chance that we could improve on last year’s top 10, which earned a combined $62 million. I think we’ll miss that target, but at least there’s some life in theaters again, and three relatively promising wide releases next weekend should keep the momentum growing as Thanksgiving draws near.

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