The Devil Wears Prada 2 is locked for #1 this weekend, with our model projecting an $80–100M opening. Reuniting Streep, Hathaway, and Blunt 20 years after the 2006 original’s $124.7M domestic run, the film has the long-gap-reunion ingredients that turned Top Gun: Maverick into a cultural moment ($126M opening on the way to over $700M domestic), Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ($111M finaling at $294M domestic), and to a much lesser extent, Freakier Friday ($29M and $94M final).
20th Century/Disney is going wide on roughly 4,000 theaters with day-and-date IMAX, betting on the built-in audience showing up in huge numbers. And they should feel pretty good about that bet: we have the film tracking for $80M+ this weekend, with a shot at inching closer to $90M+, which would triple the original’s debut way back in 2006. For awhile, tracking was leaning closer to $100M+, but has come back down somewhat after the big upfront fan presales. Still, $80M+ is a great result here and with good reviews and early audience reactions, plus a Mother’s Day boost on weekend two, expect this one to leg out to at least $250M domestically with a very real chance at $300M.
Michael’s first hold is the more interesting question. The Jackson biopic blew past every tracking range with $97.2M opening and sits at $116M through Tuesday. Comps like Bohemian Rhapsody dropped -39% in its sophomore frame; Straight Outta Compton fell -56%; Elvis was -41%. Does Michael play like these, or does it behave more like a front-loaded fan-driven event film? With DWP2 coming for the same audience on top of that, anything under a 60% drop should feel pretty good here. If it can get under 50%, then we’re seeing word of mouth spreading and looking at a nice leggy run into May. Expect around $45M and ~$170M or so by Sunday, also on its way to somewhere between $250–$300M — almost exactly what our model is predicting going into the weekend.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie heads into its fifth frame at just over $390M, $110M behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie at the equivalent point in 2023. Mario Bros’ fifth weekend was $18.6M (-55%); Galaxy comes off a -44% week 4 at $20.6M and likely drops another 40% to around $12M, putting the cume over $400M by Sunday. With DWP2 pulling adults rather than families, there’s no real fragmentation risk for Galaxy this weekend. A $425–435M domestic finish remains the projection. Worldwide is closing in on $1 billion and should pass $900M this weekend.
Project Hail Mary crosses $315M this weekend in its seventh frame. After last weekend’s -37% hold to $12.8M and around $310M headed into the weekend, the film only needs another week or two to cross Oppenheimer’s $322M lifetime as it heads towards $340M+ and $700M worldwide.
Three other wide releases open on the much smaller side. Angel Studios’ Animal Farm, Neon’s Hokum, a Boots Riley follow-up to Sorry to Bother You, and finally, Sony’s That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie — all headed for low-to-mid single digits.
The recap article for this weekend will be published Sunday, May 3 after weekend estimates land.