Weekend predictions: Civil War, Abigail and Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare tussling for top spot

Our forecasting model is predicting essentially a three-way tie at the top of the box office chart this weekend, with Civil War the marginal favorite to beat Abigail and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare in the battle for top spot. The legs of each film will be essential in determining which one comes out the winner, with Abigail looking the most likely of the newcomers to challenge Civil War. Spy x Family Code: White, meanwhile, looks like it will be back in the pack.

With three brand new wide releases, plus a wide expansion for Sasquatch Sunset, there’s a lot to dive into this morning.

First up, here’s what the model thought of Abigail going into the weekend…

This movie has been tracking quite well, and seemed like a good bet for a $15-million debut going into the weekend. Its previews don’t support that number, but are still respectable.

As is often the case, our model penalizes Abigail for missing its preview benchmark—it thought the horror movie should have earned around $1.4 million last night. That brings our final prediction down quite sharply. Personally, I think the film should top $10 million this weekend, and could even bring in $12 million or more, but it will need a good multiplier from its preview earnings to do so.

Our baseline analysis for The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare was somewhat below that for Abigail:

Guy Ritchie has struggled to find an audience recently, and the model predicted a weekend over $10 million only because of relatively high interest in this movie (it was, for example our most-anticipated movie going into the weekend—usually a good sign).

Lionsgate reported $1.45 million in previews for Ministry, but that included $600,000 from special advanced screenings last weekend. With those figures taken into account, the model thinks the film is doing about what was expected so far…

The model’s final analysis suggests that The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare will lose pace through the weekend. The industry consensus seems to be the same, and our final prediction of nearly $10 million is actually quite a bit higher than what is generally expected. Ritchie’s films have had good legs through the weekend though. If this film does too, it could yet surprise, but third place seems most likely.

Finally, Crunchyroll’s Spy x Family Code: White is seeking anime fans this weekend.

This is a genre that the model has trouble predicting due to a relative lack of data (although the situation is improving significantly thanks to a more regular stream of releases and better reporting of box office). The preview numbers, however, confirm that this film should land somewhere in the mid-single digits.

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

This won’t be a huge weekend at the box office, but it is looking like a close-run race. Civil War goes in the favorite to top the box office chart, but four films are in the running as of this morning.

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