Weekend predictions: Wild Robot headed for the top on a jam-packed weekend

This is a busy weekend in the movie theaters, with no less than seven films either opening or expanding wide. After four wide arrivals last weekend, moviegoers are spoiled for choice at the moment, at least in terms of quantity. There’s some quality too, but it’s a challenge for any one title to stand out from the crowd. The Wild Robot will fairly clearly be the biggest new wide release, and our model thinks it will to the chart. Megalopolis should be the second-highest-grossing opener, but beyond that it gets increasingly hard to discern how things will shake out. There’s so much going on that we’re publishing an extra-long weekend prediction chart this weekend, just to fit in all the films that could hit the top 10.

Before going through the predictions in detail, it’s worth noting that our model thinks the market is particularly weak at the moment thanks to a string of under-performers over the past few weeks. That reduces its expectations for the films coming out, but it turns out that our audience tracking mostly confirms the numbers the model is producing.

To get started, here’s what the model thought of The Wild Robot going into the weekend.

Industry expectations have been much higher for this one, but its preview numbers are quite disappointing…

Given this is a family film, it could yet come roaring back over the weekend. A multiplier of 15 compared to its previews would get it to $29,000,000. That would be below some predictions, but count as a win at this point. With excellent reviews, and little competition for a while, it could yet have good legs, but it’ll need to have spectacular holds to keep playing in theaters for an extended period.

Megalopolis is such an unusual film it’s a challenge to predict, but expectations were quite low…

Its previews suggest it could beat expectations…

Given the sharply divided opinions on this film, there’s a good chance it runs out of steam over the next few days. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up back where it started, with a weekend around $6.5 million to $7 million.

Our model has detailed predictions for three other films, starting with the wide expansion of My Old Ass…

Amazon MGM Studios bought the worldwide rights for this film for over $15 million at Sundance in January, and they’ll be hoping it starts to earn that back in earnest this weekend. It had a decent start in limited release last weekend, but it’ll need to hold on unusually strongly to make the studio/streamer’s investment look like a good one.

Lee is the next film worth looking out for this weekend…

Our audience tracking is very high for this one, and it has a decent claim to being the first indie award hopeful this season (although My Old Ass and Megalopolis have aspirations of their own). A weekend over $1 million would be a decent result, but it clearly could go higher.

Next up is horror movie Azrael from IFC Films…

This looks like a film that’s likely to get lost in the noise, but audience tracking has been strong.

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

Although it doesn’t look like a lock on top spot from the chart above, my hunch is that The Wild Robot will hold on well enough through the weekend to easily hold off Transformers One and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Of those two, Beetlejuice is the favorite for second spot.

There are two more wide releases that we don’t have full predictions for, but that the model has taken a run at this morning. Devara Part 1 looks as though it will hit the top 10. Vindicating Trump isn’t expected to do so, but there are so many films expected to earn between $1 million and $3 million that it wouldn’t be a surprise to see it show up in the top 10 too.

The shear number of new films and returning titles that are doing middling business makes this a complicated weekend for theater managers (and industry analysts!). Overall though, it looks as though we’ll only make a fairly modest $80 million or so in total, unless The Wild Robot does a lot more business than expected at the moment.

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