Weekend estimates: Death on the Nile wins Super Bowl weekend

February 13, 2022

The studios are in a cautious mood this morning, projecting a steep fall-off at the box office on Sunday thanks to the Super Bowl, and little upside from Sunday being the day before Valentine’s Day. That leaves the studio estimates somewhat behind what our model predicted on Friday morning, but still sees relatively solid debuts for Death on the Nile and Marry Me, at $12.8 million and $8 million respectively. Spider-Man: No Way Home continues to power ahead and will hit $759 million in total domestically by the end of the day today, per Sony’s prediction. That leaves it just $1.5 million behind Avatar on the all-time domestic list

Here’s how the domestic numbers look this morning…

The lower estimates across the board compared to what our model predicted on Friday are due to steep expected declines on Sunday. Disney is predicting that Death on the Nile, for example, will drop by 67% from Saturday to Sunday, and Universal has Marry Me declining 60%. Those numbers would be in line with previous Super Bowl Sundays. In 2020, Bad Boys for Life dropped 71% from Saturday to Sunday, and The Gentlemen fell 73%. However, Little Women, which seems to me a little more comparable to Death on the Nile and Marry Me, was down just 56% that day. The studios have more of an inside track on ticket pre-sales than I do, but I think the final weekend numbers could come in a little ahead of where the studios have them this morning. The difference won’t be huge—maybe an extra $500,000 for Death on the Nile if it performs as well as Little Women—but worth looking out for on Monday.

Wherever the final numbers end up, both Death on the Nile and Marry Me will beat our model’s predictions going into the weekend. However, the reported demographics for each will still be somewhat on the low side. 47% of Death on the Nile’s audience, and 46% of Marry Me’s audience, are over 35, per their respective studios. That’s low compared to a film like News of the World, which had 70% of its audience over 35 on opening weekend back in December, 2020. In the pre-pandemic era, The Goldfinch had an audience on opening weekend that was 80% over 35. Unfortunately, we don’t have demographic information on Murder on the Orient Express, but the evidence we do have points towards a continued lack of older audiences in movie theaters.

Both Death on the Nile and Marry Me should benefit from a good day on Monday as couples hit theaters for Valentine’s Day. That will be a welcome boost for movie theaters, given that business as a whole remains very subdued. The weekend as a whole should top $50 million once all the numbers are in, but we’ll need a good opening from Uncharted next weekend to get some momentum going into the second half of the month.

- Weekend studio estimates
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Death on the Nile, Uncharted, Marry Me, Spider-Man: No Way Home