Weekend predictions: KPop Demon Hunters and Weapons battle for top spot

The KPop Demon Hunters Sing-Along Event is selling out movie theaters across the country, and could deliver Netflix a top place on the box office chart this weekend, with Weapons its only real competition. Whether Netflix will report box office numbers is another matter. They historically haven’t, but this weekend will present a conundrum—do they make headlines through promoting a chart-topping performance, or stick to their longstanding “it’s all about the streaming” message?

There are a plethora of films opening “wide” this weekend, but we have a formal prediction for just one, Honey Don’t, which is opening in a modest 1,317 movie houses.

Honey Don’t is, in many ways, a follow-up to last year’s Drive Away Dolls, which opened with $2.4 million and ended with a modest $5 million. Since the two films are technically not in the same franchise, the model casts a wider net for comparable films, and thereby comes up with a higher prediction for this new Margaret Qualley/Ethan Coen/Tricia Cooke collaboration.

That turns out to be supported by decent preview numbers…

The model (sorta-kinda) adjusts for the fact that some of the previews came from earlier special screenings to come up with a prediction around $4 million. I would lean towards another opening in the range of $2.5 million, and $2.8 million would line up with the previews earned by Drive Away Dolls, but as usual I’m using the model’s prediction in our final analysis.

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

I think the model is being a bit generous to Weapons, which is justified by its excellent second weekend, and an increase in its theater count. I think it will probably land closer to $15 million in this outing, although it has little competition to worry about. KPop Demon Hunters is basically impossible to predict, so the figure above is basically the industry rumor as of Friday morning. There’s a decent chance the top two come out in reverse order, with Demon Hunters bagging $20 million, and Weapons picking up $15 million.

The other wildcard this weekend is Ne Zha 2, which is getting an English-language release in over 2,000 theaters via A24. It certainly has the potential to land in the top 10. Adding to the general confusion, Vertical Entertainment releases the star-studded Eden this weekend, while Bleecker Street debuts Relay. All three of these films are getting limited showtimes, which reduces their potential at the box office.

Finally, Primitive War opened yesterday and plays in wide release with limited showtimes through the weekend.

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