Practical Magic 2 breaks the streak as the all-time domestic record falls

We said last week that all signs pointed to at least $35 million with a good shot at $40M+, and everything since has moved that way… with one new wrinkle thrown in. Warners is telling people $30 to $35 million on 4,000 theaters, and studios normally lowball their estimates so their films can go above those numbers. Presales and tracking has had the film at or above $40M.

Reviews did just drop… and they’re not great at 36% from 59 critics at time of writing. We have seen those creep up from around 30% when reviews first dropped, so hopefully they can get into the 40’s range, which at least feels better than seeing a score in the 30s. It’s unclear how much this will impact the opening, as the original also got mixed-bad reviews and there’s a built-in fanbase that will probably show up no matter what. The question is how big that built-in fanbase is, and if the reviews may turn off some of the more casual audiences. Either way, $30M still feels locked here, so it’s more about whether the momentum that pointed to $40M can sustain.

For where it lands, the lane is well mapped. The Lost City opened to $30.5 million and legged to $105.3 million on 3.5x. Hustlers opened to $33.2 million and finished at $105.0 million on 3.16x. A Simple Favor did $16 million into $53.5 million. Those all did legs of more than 3x. Even if we’re being pessimistic, and assuming a $40 million start, expect at worst 2.5x legs, which get it to around $100M. If it opens close to $30M, $100M domestic would be at risk, but on a $75 million budget this should be easily profitable either way once you add in international.

We’ve been waiting for this moment for at least a month now, and this is the weekend Spider-Man will finally pass Star Wars: The Force Awakens to become the biggest movie of all-time at the domestic box office, a record that hasn’t been broken since 2015. It closed Tuesday at $925M, 43% under the Tuesday before, and on that footing Wednesday and Thursday take roughly $2 to $2.5 million between them, which leaves about $9 million to find across Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Last weekend’s -19% drop was the shallowest of the run and it was Labor Day doing the work; expect it to come back down to earth this weekend to a drop in the 40s. That means we expect the record to fall on Sunday (Monday at the very latest).

Let’s just take a second on what is about to happen. A seventh Tom Holland Spider-Man film (and 4th as a solo movie) opened to $360.1 million, the biggest opening in history, took six straight weekends at number one, easily topped the presumed biggest Spidey movie at the time (No Way Home, featuring all three Spider-Man actors joining forces for huge built-in audience nostalgia), was still doing $18.2 million in its sixth weekend, sailed past Endgame, and is now about to take down a record that has stood since December 2015 and that most people assumed was permanent.

Worldwide it is at $2.42 billion with $1.49 billion of that international, third all-time. It has slowed enough that Endgame’s $2.80 billion is out of reach, so around $2.5 billion is where this ends.

The Odyssey is also set for a big milestone this weekend as it gets ready to topple $600M domestically. It needs less than $7 million to clear $600 million, so that number goes down by Sunday too. It currently sits 18th all-time domestically. Incredibles 2 at $608.6 million goes within days of the weekend, and then it is Star Wars: The Last Jedi at $620.2 million and The Avengers at $623.4 million.

Once again, it was on top midweek this week, just ahead of Spider-Man on Tuesday, and it should stay #1 until Practical Magic 2 opens Friday. Tuesday came in at -29% against last Tuesday, so we could see a drop around 30-35% this weekend for $8 to $10 million, getting it a hair over $600M by Sunday. The strength this late in its run is due to the IMAX screens staying close to full most nights, so even though it is now only on around 2,300 screens, its theater averages have remained strong.

Worldwide it is at $1.63 billion with $1.04 billion international, already the biggest of Christopher Nolan’s career by a distance, on its way to $1.7B+.

We said double digits last weekend would be a great result and it did $11,969,005, off 25%. Its Monday held 84.7% of its Sunday, the best Labor Day Monday hold in the top five, which is the family audience using the whole four days as word of mouth continues to get out.

While it should take a step down after the holiday, we see this still performing well and holding on, around $6-7M on its way to at least $60M domestically, a nice win for Ketchup Entertainment after acquiring this from Warners, who shelved it for a tax write-off. Ketchup gets to be the good guys AND will make a little money here at the same time.

Scott Waugh directs for Angel Studios, and Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson are an appealing pairing on paper here, but the real question is whether people come out to the theater for this one or wait to catch it on streaming later. Angel Studios has built real distribution muscle, but we’ll see how this one goes. Anything over $5M would be a fine start, knowing that this will do most of its business at home.

Paul Greengrass directs, doing Robin Hood as a peasants’ revolt, with Garfield, Jamie Bell, Stephen Dillane and Tom Hollander offering some moderate star power but not exactly butts-in-seats guarantees. It is a prestige-adult proposition, and we just had another Robin Hood film flop over the Summer with Hugh Jackman attached, so we’ll have to see how this one does. Reviews are modest at 54%, which for the type of film does hurt its chances more than something like Practical Magic 2.

Na Hong-jin’s first film in ten years opens on roughly 1,560 screens, the widest US footprint a Korean-language film has had since Parasite. Of course, Parasite opened limited and slowly expanded as the buzz grew and grew (all the way to the Best Picture Oscar win), whereas this one is starting wide on day one, with Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russell in the cast and $35.3 million already banked in Korea. Critics are at 78% and the audience score is 82%, so if any of the smaller releases have a shot to surprise this weekend, this feels like the best bet. It also has an intriguing monster element to it which may help broaden the audience. We’ll see how it goes over the weekend as it still feels a little hard to predict exactly where it’ll land, except to say single digit millions.