SATURDAY AM: What can be as bad as a 2,000-mile snowstorm that shutters theaters? Why, Super Bowl weekend.
And while it’s not the lowest weekend of the year (yet), it’s quite close with all movies doing under $60M versus the $55.1M till two weekends ago when 400 multiplexes turned off the lights due to snow and ice. Sunday’s business alone for most movies in the top 10 is expected to drop some -60% or steeper off Saturday’s ticket sales. It’s very, very clear, the old days of a major studio rolling the dice on a Taken or a Hannah Montana movie are far gone, and not worth the investment. Better to play into the weekend, and holdover. If you’re going to open at all, play to the margins, play to the niche demos, play at a low P&A, hence the hodge-podge of indie genre, K-Pop and values-based fare (Angel Studios’ Kevin James rom-com Solo Mio which is best of the new bunch with $7.4M in 2nd place after a $3.1M Friday/previews) and an A- CinemaScore and Screen Engine/Comscore PostTrak exits of 82% definite recommend (amazing) and 5 stars/92% positive.
20th Century Studios’ Send Help believes there is a path to $9M-$10M No. 1 notch for the pic’s second frame, despite rivals seeing around $8.5M. It depends on how much the Winter Olympics distracts people today.
Don’t underestimate Markiplier’s Iron Lung for a potential No. 2, which is where some rivals see it at $6M, -67%, in weekend 2. That drop was always foreseen given how fan-front-loaded the movie was on its very low marketing cost. That gets the ten-day on the feature take of the indie video game to $30.8M by end of day tomorrow.
Solo Mio drew 62% women to 38% guys. Sixty percent of the overall crowd was over 45 with women over 25 repping 56% of attendees. Diversity demos were 45% Caucasian, 25% Latino/Hispanic, 4% Black and 5% Asian American. The first rom-com release by Angel Studios played to their demos in the South, Midwest and Mountain with Cinemark 12 in American Fork, UT the highest grossing multiplex with $9K. While not a faith-based movie per-se, Angel Studios prides itself on values-driven content, which is what this James lost-in-love-in-Italy movie is categorized as. Angel has 2M Angel Guild members (subscribers) who play a monthly fee for access to the Angel streaming platform. They get two movie tickets annually, and the publicly traded distrib markets directly to them. By the end of 2025, Angel doubled their Guild membership over a nine-month period. Solo Mio was a distribution deal, but Angel is on the hook for P&A.
Bleecker Street/Crosswalk’s Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience is seeing an opening between $5.5M-$5.7M in fourth. Stray Kids was No. 1 on Friday with $3.2M including previews. No audience scores other than that 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Imax and some PLFs are driving a little over half of the weekend with best markets being South, West, East Canada and South Central. The Cinema Cineplex Forum in Montreal is the concert pic’s best location with just over $15K. The K-Pop moviegoing audience is real on a niche level with this weekend’s take not far from BTS: Yet to Come in Cinemas which played over Super Bowl weekend 2023 to a 5-day of $8M.
Vertical is still seeing its best opening ever with Luc Besson’s Dracula at $4.1M after a $2.1M Friday/previews. No CinemaScore but PostTrak ain’t bad with a solid 64% definite recommend and four stars in a movie which pulled in 47% women over 25 and 33% men over 25. The 25-34 set was the pic’s largest at 39%. Women under 25, who only showed up at 13%, gave the movie its best definite recommend at 69%. Caucasians were 45%, Latino and Hispanic repped 35%, with 6% Black and 7% Asian. The Caleb Landry Jones and Zoe Bleu pic is best in the West, Mountain and South Central with the AMC Burbank the pic’s highest grossing venue with just over $9K. No CinemaScore. Pic’s global grows to $33.2M. Vertical acquired U.S. on this.
Lionsgate’s The Strangers – Chapter 3 has a scary low start out of the wide entries with $3.4M-$3.8M in 7th place with a complete rejection by fans with a D CinemaScore. That’s the lowest of the three movies (Strangers 2 was C- and Strangers‘ C). Post Track is a don’t recommend with a 26% definite recommend (a low figure we rarely ever see) and a half star. Those who showed were 53% men/47% women with 32% between 25-34. Diversity demos were 40% Caucasian, 35% Hispanic/Latino, 15% Black and 4% Asian American. We’ll get into the economics of this in a bit, but the entire trilogy was shot altogether by Renny Harlin for a reported net $20M production cost. In the books, Lionsgate looks at the trilogy as one film not broken out as three. The first two movies grossed $70M worldwide. P&A was low at $5M — and there’s a reason for that. Stay tuned.
A24’s expansion of Charli xcx’s mockumentary The Moment from 4 NYC/LA theaters to 581 is seeing $1.7M-$1.8M outside the top ten after $891K Friday yesterday. Ten-day total should be on the high end at $2.3M.
- Send Help (20th) 3,475 theaters Fri $2.8M (-61%), 3-day $9M-$10M (-50%), Total $35.8M/Wk 2
- Solo Mio (Angel) 3,052 theaters, Fri $3.1M, 3-day $7.4M/Wk 1
- Iron Lung (Inde) 2,930 (-85) theaters, Fri $2M (-77%), 3-day $6M (-67%), Total $30.8M/Wk 2
- Stray Kids (BST) 1,724 theaters, Fri $3.2M, 3-day $5.5M-$5.7M/Wk 1
- Dracula (Vert) 2,050, Fri $2.1M, 3-day $4.1M/Wk 1
- Zootopia 2 (Dis) 2,715 (-165) theaters, Fri $900K (-30%), 3-day $3.7M (-38%), Total $414.2M/Wk 11
- Strangers Chapter 3 (LG) 2,565 theaters, Fri $1.58M, 3-day $3.4M-$3.8M/Wk 1
- Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th) 2,365 (-435) theaters, Fri $815K (-35%) 3-day $3.2M (-43%) Total $391.2M/Wk 8
- Shelter (Bear) 2,726 theaters, Fri $750K (-60%), 3-day $2.4M (-56%), Total $9.96M/Wk 2
- Melania (AMZ) 2,003 (+225) theaters, Fri $865K (-70%), 3-day $2.43M (-66%), Total $13.4M/Wk 2
FRIDAY PM: We always knew it was going to be slow, the question is by how much. Right now, 20th Century Studios’ Sam Raimi movie Send Help is eyeing $10 million in its second weekend at 3,475 sites after a $3M second Friday. If that keeps in line, that’s a -48%, which is pretty damn good for a genre movie. Pic’s ten-day total would move up to $35.8M in North American.
Second for the weekend, is Angel Studios’ Kevin James rom-com Solo Mio, which is also eyeing $3.1M today, including yesterday’s $744K previews, for a $7.6M opening at 3,052 theaters.
‘Solo Mio’
Angel Studios
Third is going to Bleecker Street’s K-pop concert movie Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience with $3.2M today (including $900,000 from 351 Imax Wednesday previews), and around $5M for this weekend at 1,724 sites. Again, 100% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics haven’t dared sit through this yet.
Fourth is Vertical’s Luc Besson-directed Dracula with $2.3M today and an $4.8M opening, which would be the distributor’s best yet ahead of We Bury the Dead‘s $2.5M. As we told you, audiences on Rotten Tomatoes like it better than critics, 75% to 57% Rotten.
Fifth is the second weekend of Markiplier’s Iron Lung with an estimated $4.65M at 2,930 theaters, which would rep a 74% drop after a second Friday of around $1.5M. Running cume by Sunday looks to be $29.45M.
Lionsgate’s The Strangers – Chapter 3 at 2,565 is looking at $1.7M today and about a $3.7M opening. Strangers 2 last September opened to $5.8M, while The Strangers – Chapter 1 posted the best beginning of three at $11.8M in May 2024. No RT audience score yet for the critically panned horror pic at 19%.
Where’s Amazon MGM Studios’ second weekend of Melania? She’s seeing $3.5M, off 51%, with a running 10-day total by Sunday of $14.5M.
Last year, Super Bowl weekend was led by the second frame of DreamWorks Animation’s Dog Man ($13.8M), with all titles grossing $54.2M, the second worst weekend of 2025.