Michael is opening big — the question is just how big it will go. Antoine Fuqua’s Michael Jackson biopic has seen tracking climb into the $70M+ range, up from $50M+ earlier this month, a number that would crack Straight Outta Compton’s $60.2M all-time music-biopic opening record and soar past Elvis ($31M) and Bohemian Rhapsody ($51M). Presales are strong, and we’re expecting this to be a walk-up friendly movie too, especially if word-of-mouth is good. Lionsgate is going wide on 3,900 theaters including 1,600 IMAX/PLF screens, and the Jaafar Jackson casting plus the Jackson estate endorsement have driven the kind of pre-sales that usually foreshadow a breakout. Reviews offer a bit of a wrinkle in the plan: currently at 32% on Rotten Tomatoes and 38 on Metacritic, but the early word is that it’s a crowd pleaser, even if critics are sour. Its $170M production budget means it’ll need to go past $400M worldwide to justify itself, but we’re seeing big excitement globally, so that may prove an easy bar. Bohemian Rhapsody is the high water mark with $216M domestic and a huge $879M globally — but that rode a wave of Oscar nominations and feels like a couple of pegs too high here (at least worldwide). Domestically though, Queen’s total is well in reach for the King of Pop.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie falls to #2 in its fourth weekend and lands somewhere around $20–25M, a 40–50% drop from the $36.5M third frame, which is a far cry from The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s $40M fourth weekend. Through 20 days the film sits at $359M and will push $380M by Sunday. While this should still cruise past the $420–430M range of last year’s three family biggies (Zootopia 2 at $428M, A Minecraft Movie at $424M, and Lilo & Stitch also at $424M) — it likely won’t be by very much.
Project Hail Mary crosses $300 million this weekend. After last weekend’s stunning -15% fifth-frame hold, the film only needs ~$10M across its sixth frame to cross the milestone. Even a pessimistic -45% drop (post-IMAX-boost with big new competition) still clears it, but we’re thinking the hold will be more like 35–40%. Surpassing Oppenheimer’s $322M now feels like a sure bet.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy heads into its second weekend needing the kind of hold it’s unlikely to get. The film opened soft at $13.5M, sits at $14.6M through four days, and faces a horror genre baseline of 55–65% second-weekend drops, which points to a 2nd frame of $4.5–6M and a domestic finish in the $22–27M range. Not great, but international has been stronger and the production budget was modest at $22M, so all-in-all totally fine for Warner Bros.
The Drama returns for its fourth weekend after a -44% hold and $40M through 17 days. The A24 comedy is pacing ahead of Challengers’ $50M final and a $55–60M finish is locked if the film can hold under -45% against Michael’s arrival. Audience crossover between Michael and The Drama is real as both skew older for date-night, so a steeper drop is the bigger risk this weekend.
A24’s Mother Mary expands from its 5-theater platform launch (massive $33,613 PTA) into wide release this weekend. The Anne Hathaway musical drama posted mixed-favorable reviews (72% RT, 56 MC) and heads into the same older-skewing date-night market Michael is dominating. $2–4M on the wide opening is likely; the question is whether Hathaway’s name carries the film beyond the A24 core once the platform halo fades.
Michael opened to a stunning $97 million estimated, not just the biggest music-biopic opening of all time, but a complete demolition of the existing record. The previous high-water mark was Straight Outta Compton’s $60.2M from 2015, with Bohemian Rhapsody ($51.1M) and Elvis ($31.2M) further back. Tracking had been rising the last month — but was still leveling out in the high 70s — so this result blew past even the updated tracking, already far bigger than initial expectations of around $50M. We saw the breakout and predicted $79–85M, but even that turned out to be too low.
Critics hated it (38% RT, 39 Metacritic) but audiences loved it (A CinemaScore, 97% RT Audience, 3.6 Letterboxd) — the exact split that historically generates massive legs. Even a modest 2.5x final multiplier would put Michael at around $240M domestic and ahead of Bohemian Rhapsody’s $216M lifetime. Worldwide, Michael was huge too, opening to around $200M and squarely on track for at least $500M global. Whether it goes higher depends on how well it holds in the weeks ahead. Bohemian Rhapsody’s near $900M still feels out of reach, but this could push towards $600M+ if it plays more like a regular film and less like a frontloaded event — we’ll know more after next weekend.
Project Hail Mary crossed $300 million domestic with another strong hold considering the competition — just -36% to $13.2M in its sixth weekend, sitting at a $305M total. That puts it $6 million ahead of Oppenheimer day-for-day at the equivalent point in its run ($299M through six weekends), the comp we’ve been tracking against for two months. Our prediction model has been forecasting $296–$322M for weeks; and it should finish above that, with an outside shot at $350M. It’s now over $600M global and $700M worldwide finish is not locked but definitely in view. For a hard sci-fi $200M production with no franchise lifeline, this is the run of the year so far.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie fell to #2 with $21.2M (-42%) in its fourth frame, pushing its cume to $386M domestic. The drop is squarely middle-of-pack for a fourth-week family animated tentpole, but compare to The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s fourth weekend ($40M, just a -32% drop) and the deceleration is real. Galaxy will pass $400M next weekend on its way to a finish in the $425–435M range, still huge but not in the same conversation as the original’s $574.9M. Worldwide it’s closing in on $815M; the $1B target is still in range, but it’s not going too far past that this time around.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy dropped -58% to $5.6M in its second weekend. That’s a soft Average-tier hold for horror, but maybe slightly better than we expected, all things considered. Through 10 days it sits at $23.5M, on its way to around $30M. The $22M budget is technically covered domestic-only, and worldwide will push it past $55M, but Warner Bros. clearly wanted bigger from a director coming off Evil Dead Rise.
The Drama rounded out the top five with $2.65M (-46%) in its fourth weekend, putting it at $44.8M domestic. The drop is steeper than the third weekend (-44%) but still consistent with a film that’s held the dramedy lane against four straight weekends of new competition. A $50–$55M domestic finish is the realistic zone now. For a $25M A24 production, this is already a hit — pacing ahead of Challengers’ $50M lifetime with several weeks of runway left.
Below the top five: Hoppers earned another $1.9M (-38%) in its eighth frame, now at $164M as it inches towards a $170M finish. You, Me & Tuscany collapsed -62% to $1.5M in week three, with $17.6M total with a real chance of finishing just under $20M.
Mother Mary made its wide expansion count, jumping from 5 theaters to 1,103 and earning $1.25M (+646%) for a $1.49M total — a weak $1,136 PTA meaning audiences largely ignored it. The two new wide openers both bombed: Over Your Dead Body opened to $1.5M from 1,550 theaters ($965 PTA, mediocre 53 Metacritic / 69% RT) and Desert Warrior opened to $472K from 1,010 theaters ($467 PTA — brutal). Michael ate the entire weekend’s adult attention; both films enter their second frames already cooked.