Weekend projections: Beetlejuice set to top $100 million on debut

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is scaring up a huge opening weekend, particularly for this time of year, with Warner Bros. currently projecting an opening weekend of $110 million. That’s on the high side of already high expectations, and will give it the second-biggest September weekend ever, behind only fellow classic scary-movie reboot, 2017’s It. Our model was predicting it would fall just short $100 million on Friday, and it will cross that mark fairly easily, meaning the word-of-mouth through the weekend has been good.

Here’s how the weekend numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…

Beetlejuice is the only film beating our model’s prediction, based on numbers reported on Sunday morning, but several other titles come close. The most notable among them is Reagan, which will decline only 32% in its second weekend, and rise a place to third in the chart. Dramas like this appeal to an older audience generally, and can often have good legs, but they have to resonate with their target audience. This film clearly does.

The films that are fading on the chart this weekend are mostly being hit by the end of school holidays, and were boosted by the Labor Day holiday last time around. The only film that’s really looking a disappointment is The Front Room. It isn’t posting terrible numbers, but A24 generally does better on opening weekend. With a lot of horror movies on the release schedule, maybe this is a sign that audiences have had enough, at least when it comes to R-rated horror.

PG-13 Tim Burton horror comedies are the new black.

– Studio weekend projections

– All-time top-grossing movies in North America

– All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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