Memorial Day weekend was already gearing up to be a slow one this year, but Furiosa‘s under-performance at $32.3 million for the four-day haul — coupled with The Garfield Movie pulling $31.3 million in its long debut — led to an even more depressed frame that hoped for.
It’ll be another week before business picks back up in a significant way with June 7’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die, followed by a slew of more typical summer tentpoles in the weeks after.
For now, though, here’s how this weekend is shaping up.
Key Tracking Factors:
- The Garfield Movie faces no direct competition from new releases this weekend and was already impacted by the second frame of IF, both family-leaning films, over the holiday. Garfield should hold up better among the major studio second weekend holdovers with no new competition until June 14’s Inside Out 2.
- Furiosa narrowly claimed a holiday victory debut last week, but its nature as a two-quadrant film with a fan base will lead to some frontloading-induced sharp drops despite the lack of significant competition this weekend. Retention of PLF formats and positive reception among those who’ve seen the film will help ease some of the blow.
- A handful of films will open in limited release, though we are only offering projections for one of them at this time: Sony and Crunchyroll’s Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle. Pre-sales are comparable to those of Spy x Family based on sample markets, though a lower estimated location count (1,000 versus Spy‘s 2,009) and less PLF footprint may keep Dumpster from that film’s $4.8 million spring weekend debut.
Weekend Forecast
This weekend’s top 10 films are tracking to earn 79 percent less than the same weekend in 2023 ($203.3 million, when Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse opened to $120.7 million) and 75 percent less than the same weekend in 2019 ($167.6 million, when Godzilla: King of the Monsters opened to $47.8 million).
All forecasts above are subject to revision prior to the start of the weekend and will be notated accordingly. Theater counts are estimated unless otherwise stated.
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Is this a “no chart unless on substack” situation? I get it, if so. And yeah, it’s definitely hard to forecast the new releases. The only thing I’m willing to stick my neck out on is “In a Violent Nature” doing surprisingly strong. Indie horror has done rather well this year.