Weekend predictions: no signs of a breakout hit heading into Memorial Day

May 24, 2024

Three new wide releases, each aimed at a different audience, are taking a crack at drawing moviegoers back into theaters over Memorial Day weekend. Based on audience tracking and their Thursday previews, it doesn’t look as though any of them will have a huge impact on the market, although none look likely to be disasters. That’s been the story of the year so far: most films that have come out have landed at least somewhere in the ballpark of expectations, but not a single one has become the blockbuster we need.

Here’s how Memorial Day, traditionally a launchpad for Summer blockbusters, is shaping up this year.

First up, we have Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, which is widely regarded as one of the best action movies of the last 20 years.

Our model relies of the previous installment of the franchise to make its prediction. That’s a small amount of data to go on, but audience tracking suggested the new film should start at around about the same amount. Previews, unfortunately, aren’t as promising:

The big caveat is that Fury Road had almost identical previews—$3.7 million in its case—and finished its opening weekend with $45.4 million. That means Furiosa still has a shot at $40 million, but sequels tend to be more front-loaded, and anything over $35 million would represent a very high multiplier for an action film.

I haven’t given up on hope for a $40-million opening for Furiosa, and it’ll get a bonus day on Monday, which should help it over its first week. But getting to $35 million before it runs out road this weekend would be a good result at this point.

The Garfield Movie is the offering for family audiences this weekend. As a non-franchise animated film (albeit one with franchise aspirations), something in the mid-20s this weekend looked like the best bet:

It’s living up to expectations so far…

Family films are particularly difficult to project from Thursday previews, but the preponderance of evidence points towards a Friday-to-Sunday weekend around $25 million.

Finally, Angel Studios will be offering an inspiring drama for older audiences who aren’t in the mood for post-apocalyptic action:

We don’t have a preview number for Sight, but Angel Studios have been quite consistent in their short history. The relatively small theater count for this film points towards an opening around $5 million. Cabrini’s $16.7-million market-strength-adjusted debut is the absolute top-end expectation for this one, but under $10 million seems much more likely.

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

In short, things don’t look great going into the “height of Summer.” A few million more might come from returning movies being helped by the holiday weekend. This is something that the model doesn’t adjust for over Memorial Day, because the strong competition generally doesn’t help returning films. This year might well be an exception to that rule.

We should cruise past $100 million over the three-day portion of the weekend, but this will almost certainly be the worst Memorial Day weekend of the 21st century, outside the pandemic era.

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

Filed under: Weekend Preview, The Garfield Movie, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Cabrini, Sight