It looks like it could be a two-way fight for #1 this weekend at around $40M a piece. The Devil Wears Prada 2 enters its sophomore frame after a $77M opening weekend, an unqualified breakout sequel — but not as big as the $90M resales were suggesting. Let’s see if it can bring in the casuals over its second weekend: the original lost just 45% on its way to $125M domestic with very strong 4.53x legs in summer 2006. The sequel’s weekday performance through Tuesday ($5.7M Monday, $8.3M Tuesday) is healthy and Mother’s Day on Sunday will help soften the drop somewhat. We could see a slide of about 45% to $42M which puts $250M+ firmly in reach for the sequel.
Mortal Kombat II opens wide on ~3,500 screens with industry tracking centered on $40M, putting the WB sequel in striking distance of Devil Wears Prada 2 for the top spot. The original Mortal Kombat opened to $23.3M five years ago, but that was day-and-date on HBO Max. A theatrical-only sequel with built-in R-rated IP equity should clear $30M with room to spare, but $40M is not yet a guarantee here and it will depend on how fan-driven it is and if it can connect with casuals. Being a little on the conservative side, we have it under $40M for the weekend at closer to $35M, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it clear $40M+ either. At this point though, we see it going below as the more likely scenario.
Michael coasts past $200M domestic this week and should stay strong this weekend with around $34M in its third frame. It’s not far behind DWP2 in the midweek daily grosses ($5.6M to $4.6M Monday, $8.3M to $6.4M Tuesday, and $5.9M to $4.7M Wednesday), and it should get just as much of a Mother’s Day boost as Prada 2 this weekend, since both share a similar audience. DWP2 should still comfortably clear Michael this weekend, but the gap will be a lot smaller than it was last time around. A $34M frame puts the film at $238M, and there’s a good chance this does close to $40M on its way to a possible $300M final.
The Sheep Detectives is the slate’s only PG family release and arrives with great early reviews at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes (at time of publishing). We haven’t had an event for kids since Mario in late March, so there’s an opening in the market for this one to break out. Industry tracking has the Amazon MGM original opening $10M–$20M; we would love to see this hit the top end of that range. We have it at $15M, hoping for great word of mouth to build throughout the weekend and into weekend two, then further buffeted by a nice boost Memorial Day weekend on weekend 3. If all that materializes, this should easily go past $60M.
Project Hail Mary is finally set to pass Oppenheimer’s domestic final this weekend, putting the science-fiction sleeper at a total that ten weeks ago looked unreachable. PHM enters week 8 at $320M. Our model had predicted a range of $296–$322M final after the huge second weekend, which in itself was an increase of $75M compared to the base prediction point for a movie like this. It’s been clear for weeks now that it would blow past that range even still and settle somewhere closer to $350M. We’ll see if it can stick around till Memorial Day weekend to get the final push it needs to make it to that point.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie heads into week 6 at $405M domestic, on a trajectory that’s diverged from the model in the opposite direction. The -41% week-5 drop wasn’t the stabilization the back half of the run needed; we project another -40% to ~$7M, putting the film at $415M after this weekend. $430M is on track, $440M would now require a hold that the daily numbers don’t suggest is coming, and $450M is out of reach. The model’s $460M midpoint was too high by $25M–$30M. That doesn’t suggest a failure of the model, it just shows how front loaded Mario was this time around for a kids film. Still, it’s approaching $1B worldwide and is an unqualified success even if it’s down about 27% down from the first movie. That’s actually relatively reasonable for a sequel, assuming it stabilizes a little more for the next one.
Hokum opened with a solid $6.4M but faces some R-rated competition in Mortal Kombat. While these are quite different types of films, it still may suck some of the potential dollars away from Hokum. Add the usual horror slide in second weekend, and expect 55–60% drop to about $3M on its way to about $15–18M, a decent result for a film like this.
Recap publishes Sunday.