Welcome back everybody, to a brand new edition of box office predictions! This one is going to be a brief one as we only have one new film entering wide release this weekend, the quasi follow up to the 2018 film, Searching, titled Missing. Still, there is stuff to discuss regarding it as well as the holdovers from the MLK holiday frame. Without further ado, lets get predicting!
Missing
As mentioned this right here is the latest installment from the universe of Searching (or at least that’s the best way I can describe it) and it looks to try and replicate the success that the original achieved nearly 5 years ago. Will the search for financial success be worth it or will it miss out on some big bucks? Lets dig right in!
Pros:
Searching was a nice little hit back when it released in 2018. Thanks to strong buzz and really solid reviews, the film was able to capitalize on a successful platform release and end up with $26 million domestically and $75 million on a meager $880,000 budget, making it a massively profitable investment.
Similarly Missing is likely to have a similarly low price tag to it (reports have anywhere between $2-$5 million) so this is the type of follow up that can afford to make less than its predecessor and still end up making money when all is said and done.
Reviews for the film have been solid thus far with many finding it to be an effective thriller that is able to differentiate itself from its predecessor while working on its own terms. This can help in convincing those who were perhaps hesitant about another installment in this universe. The fact that the film looks to be a completely stand alone story could also entice those who haven’t seen the original.
So Missing has some things up its sleeve that could help it do reasonably well. However there are some things that could prevent it from over performing.
Cons:
Despite the solid notices, it seems like buzz hasn’t been that high recently or at least not in the way it felt for Searching. While the trailers have done the job in selling the pitch, it just seems like the promotion for this film has been weirdly muted. Strange, given that the original is well regarded and that reviews have been good for this one. You’d think Sony would push this one more.
All due respect to Storm Reid (who I think is a highly talented individual), there isn’t a whole lot of star power here that could help in getting more people interested. Then again I said the same thing about M3GAN and look where that ended up (although this one is a more conventional sell).
Final thoughts:
In all, I’m not expecting Missing to reach the heights of Searching as it feels like the buzz isn’t quite on that level. However if word of mouth is as strong as the critical reactions, then I can see it sticking around for a bit to leg out to a decent enough total relative to its small budget. Overseas is an open question as Searching did around $49 million internationally, but I’m not sure if the interest is as high.
So here are my final predictions:
Opening weekend: $5 million
Domestic total: $17 million
Worldwide total: $31 million
Again, this is such a low risk title that these numbers would be perfectly fine for it. Plus I’m sure the film will get plenty of attention once it hits Netflix in a couple of months and it will likely do well on PVOD to make it more profitable.
Holdover Business:
Now let’s see how the movies that played throughout the MLK holiday weekend fared.
The big box office story continues to be Avatar: The Way of Water which was able to notch the second biggest fifth weekend gross for a movie in wide release ever behind the original Avatar ($32 million). It now stands at $576 million domestic and $1.930 billion worldwide. It is going to pass $600 million in the states and $2 billion globally very soon. It has also passed the global total of Spider-Man: No Way Home to become the biggest grosser of the Pandemic era and the sixth biggest movie of all time. To think I thought it was going to play like a normal sequel would to a movie like the original (bigger opening, but weaker staying power). It is truly going above and beyond and shows that the Avatar name is still a big draw for many people.
M3GAN had a great hold for a horror movie as it was able to slide only $39.8% from its opening and it now stands at $62 million domestic and is nearing $100 million global. I think a domestic total over $100 million is achievable and I’m curious to see just how much more it legs out. Still a new franchise is born as Universal has already announced M3GAN 2.0 for January 2025.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish continues to perform like The Greatest Showman of animated features as it increased another 6% this weekend and has passed the $100 million mark domestically, the first Dreamworks Animation feature to reach that benchmark since How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World in 2019. Globally, it stands at $257 million with plenty of gas left in the tank. This is quite the performance to behold as it is playing like a true word of mouth sensation and I’m very excited to see how far it can go.
Tom Hanks’s A Man Called Otto expanded into wide release to great results as it was able to make $15 million over the MLK 4-day holiday and it now stands at $25 million domestic. This is a great number for a full on character dramedy like this and it looks to leg out as it attracts older moviegoers thanks to some great word of mouth and the crowd pleasing nature of the feature.
As for the newcomers, well Gerard Butler’s Plane did a bit better than I expected as it made $10 million through the fri-sun frame and $12 million through the 4 day holiday frame. The decently reviewed action film apparently only cost $26 million to make (that $50 million figure I mentioned last week was apparently the film’s original price tag before it went to Lionsgate) so if it legs out just enough, I’d argue it could be considered a small scale success. It isn’t that far off from the openings of other Butler led/starring flicks (Geostorm, Gods of Egypt, Den of Thieves) so it seems like even in the Pandemic era, he is still something of a B-level movie star.
Meanwhile, as expected House Party was DOA. It only mustered up $3.9 million over the fri-sun frame and $4.7 million over the holiday frame. Not surprising given the utter lack of promotion and buzz. Still it probably didn’t cost a fortune to make and at least WB gave this a shot in theaters. That being said here’s hoping they don’t do this with other films that were originally intended for HBO Max.
In other tid bits, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is still holding firm having now passed $450 million domestic and $837 million global. Also The Whale has been doing well as it gradually been expanding into more theaters as it has now made over $11 million domestic on a reported $2 million budget.
Conclusion:
And that just about wraps up this week’s edition of box office predictions! There are no new wide releases hitting theaters next week so I’ll be sitting that one out. But I’ll be back next week as I look at the latest film from M. Night Shyamalan, Knock at the Cabin, as well as the “senior citizens go to see Tom Brady play at the Super Bowl” comedy, 80 for Brady. In the meantime, please sound off down below in the comments how you think Missing will fare as well as what you expect from any of the high profile films coming down the pipeline. Until next time, see you guys later!
Review Time 