Weekend predictions: Challengers looks like the film to beat

Three new wide releases are attempting to stop Civil War from capturing another weekend at the top of the box office chart. While none of them will be setting records, Challengers looks as though it will rise above the rest and claim the crown.

Here’s what the model thought of Challengers going into the weekend…

Director Luca Guadagnino has a history of modest opening weekends and long runs in theaters, and the model anticipated something around $7.4 million to begin with, but an impressive $37.4 million in total for the sports drama. There’s a good argument that this isn’t like Guadagnino’s previous films, and that we should expect a bigger opening (and perhaps not as high a multiplier between the opening and the final total). That theory is being borne out by the preview numbers.

Note that we haven’t had official word from the studio on the preview numbers, so we’re relying on reporting from Deadline, which only says that Challengers preview numbers are a combination of Thursday evening’s earnings and income from earlier screenings. I’ve made a fairly arbitrary split in our estimates, assuming that about 80% of the revenue earned so far by the film came from last night’s screenings.

Our final prediction is dependent on how that split worked out in reality, so our final prediction of a $12.9-million opening weekend should be taken with a grain of salt.

Our baseline analysis for Unsung Hero actually predicted a bigger opening weekend than Challengers, but a lower ultimate total…

The preview results bring things back down to earth…

Faith-based dramas like this can have quite high multipliers, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Unsung Hero beat our Friday-morning prediction. It doesn’t look like it has enough gas in the tank to challenge for a win this weekend though.

The final new release vying for a place in the upper reaches of the chart is action movie Boy Kills World.

Going into the weekend, anything over $2.5 million would be a win, according to our model, and it looks as though the film will cross that number with ease based on a reported $500,000 or so from previews…

Action movies can have quite high previews-to-weekend multipliers too, and a $5-million weekend seems like a possibility if the film enjoys good word of mouth.

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

Note that two classic films are getting re-released this weekend, Alien and The Mummy. We don’t have predictions for those two, and generally re-releases haven’t been earning huge money recently. Either one of them could find their way into the top 10 though.

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