Happy New Years everybody! I hope everyone is doing well and as always, welcome to a brand new edition of box office predictions, the first for this year! Now usually the first month of the year is a relatively quiet one with major high profile releases that are likely to make much of a dent at the box office. This weekend however sees one release that could bring some life to the month. I am of course talking about the latest Blumhouse horror flick, M3GAN, which continues a January tradition of a horror movie kicking off the new film year. How do I expect it to do? Let’s find out! Without further ado, lets get predicting!
M3GAN
As stated before, M3GAN is the latest Blumhouse produced by Blumhouse and is produced by James Wan who many may know as the director of Insidious and The Conjuring and it has gotten many horror fans buzzing in recent weeks. Question is, can that buzz translate into a killer performance at the box office? Or will this one be slaughtered by weak numbers? Lets dig right in!
Pros:
The Blumhouse name has become a marketable brand unto itself with the production company able to sell almost any high concept horror film be it a new installment in a popular franchise (Halloween, The Purge, etc.) or brand new original project (Get Out, Us, etc.). Just this year they had Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone which opened to $23 million and, thanks to tremendous word of mouth, was able to leg out to $90 million domestic and $161 million worldwide on a $16 million budget. Now not all of these can be winners (just look at how Firestarter fared), but with the right hook and strong marketing, it would be wise not to bet against what that company releases.
In regard to M3GAN, the buzz for it has been very strong with the titular character striking a chord among horror fans. Marketing has also been great with the trailers establishing the simple concept well and promising a bloody good time and the film going viral on Tik Tok among other platforms. There have even be special events where people dressed up as M3GAN would show up to the premieres of the film as well as sporting events (all for promotional reasons).
Reviews have been very good thus far, especially for a horror movie like this. Many critics have found it to be fun time and that it delivers exactly what one would hope for just by watching the trailers: a killer robot doll killing people in creative ways. The fact that the film is PG-13 also could help it attract a wider audience, which certainly doesn’t hurt.
Finally, the last big horror film to release theatrically was The Menu in mid November ($36 million domestic and $73 million worldwide) meaning there are likely horror fans who are hungry for something new and M3GAN looks to fill that void for them perfectly.
So yeah there really isn’t a whole lot that could go wrong. I mean it only cost $12 million so there is very little that could go wrong for a film like this. But if I had to think of some things, well here you go.
Cons:
Even though this film has the internet all buzzy, there is still the possibility that this could be a case of online buzz not translating to general audience interest. Maybe people may find the campiness to be a bit much and that the premise is too “been there done that”. Again I doubt this being the case but it is still something to keep in mind.
My last point is that the cast isn’t really consisted of any well known actors (all due respect to the actors as I’m sure they have talent) that would theoretically further entice those who may consider watching this. I mean even The Black Phone had one star in Ethan Hawke who audiences would recognize. Then again Smile, another recent horror sensation, didn’t have much in the way of star power, but was still able to open with $22 million and leg out to $105 million domestic and $216 million worldwide on $17 million budget.
Final thoughts:
In all, I expect M3GAN to be a solid little sleeper hit that’ll have some good buzz that will lead to it opening on par with recent horror sensations like The Black Phone and Smile. Like those two, I am expecting good legs for this one as the January schedule isn’t exactly packed with too many high profile offerings and I have a good feeling regarding word of mouth for this one. Globally it should play about as well as other recent high profile horror flicks if overseas buzz is strong.
So here are my final predictions:
Opening weekend: $23 million
Domestic total: $80 million
Worldwide total: $144 million
Does this film have to over perform in order to be considered a hit? Absolutely not. In fact it could perform lower than hoped and still be a likely hit due to the low budget and potentially strong home media revenue. Still, I have a good feeling about this one and I think it’ll end up being the first real success story of the year.
Holdover Business:
So let’s take a look at how the big holiday films fared thus far!
Let’s start with Avatar: The Way of Water, which continues to show why one shouldn’t bet against James Cameron. It dropped a normal 52% in its second (though it was impacted by the horrendous snowstorm that impacted many states), but had phenomenal weekday grosses and actually increased 6% in this past weekend. For a big blockbuster this is almost unheard of. Domestically it stands at $464 million and is already the year’s second biggest domestic earner behind Top Gun: Maverick. Meanwhile it continues to soar overseas as it has topped $1 billion in international grosses and will soon pass Spider-Man: No Way Home to become the biggest overseas grosser of the pandemic era. Globally, at $1.5 billion it is not only the biggest movie of the year but also the tenth highest grossing film of all time unadjusted for inflation… and it still has a lot more left in the tank. $2 billion is now looking like a real possibility folks. And to think, the internet likes to say nobody cares about Avatar…
Also putting up an impressive performance was Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Despite only earning $12 million in its fri-sun frame and $19 million in its wed-sun frame (lower than hoped for but I’d argue it was the film most affected by the snowstorm), it too had strong weekday grosses due to kids being out of school and spectacular word of mouth and increased 35.3% in its second weekend. As of this writing it stands at $72 million domestic and $145 million worldwide with a clear runaway ahead of it in terms of family films until Universal’s own The Super Mario Bros. Movie in April. $100 million domestic is looking like a surefire thing now and I’m curious to see how far this one goes.
The other new releases weren’t so lucky. Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody opened much lower than expected with $4 million (lower than the $8 million earned by Respect last year in its opening) and, even with a decent hold this past weekend, it stands at just $16 million. Considering the muted buzz and lack of any awards attention, this is not too surprising, however given the subject matter and the potential for strong holiday, there was some hope that this could have done modest business. It goes to shows that just because audiences showed up for a couple of musician biopics doesn’t mean they’ll show up to all of them.
Then there’s Babylon which fared even worse. It opened below even the most conservative expectations with only $3 million in its opening weekend and has only made $11 million thus far. Given the fact that it cost nearly $80 million to make, this is a pretty disastrous result… yet not a surprising one. Simply put, this is the type of film that would have struggled even in normal circumstances as the subject matter (1920s Hollywood and the transition from silent films to talkies) isn’t that appealing to general audiences, the marketing failed to convey what the film was about instead relying on the crazy party scenes and the cast to seal the deal (then again this is a very difficult film to market), the runtime is 3 hours and 8 minutes, which almost certainly turned people off from seeing this, and the reviews and audience reception was very polarizing. That being said given how good of a year Paramount has had, they can afford to take a loss here and I do still commend them for giving Damien Chazelle the money to make this type of movie. Its the type of risk that I feel studios should be willing to invest in even if they may not always pan out.
In other notable holdover news Black Panther Wakanda Forever benefitted greatly from the holidays as it now stands at $441 million domestic with $450 million in its sights. It also stands at $823 million good enough for the 6th biggest of the year. Violent Night has also continued to chug along as it did not drop dead after Christmas and looks to pass $50 million domestic very soon.
Conclusion:
And that just about wraps up this week’s edition of box office. MLK day lands next weekend and there we see two new releases hitting wide release in the Gerard Butler action vehicle, Plane, and the remake of House Party courtesy of Lionsgate and Warner Bros. respectively. Sony will also be expanding the Tom Hanks dramady, A Man Called Otto into wide release after platforming for the past couple of weeks. Until then, please sound below in the comments if you want. Do you think I’m overestimating M3GAN or is this going to surprise? In the meantime see you guys later!
Review Time 