Weekend predictions: Joker falling short of hopes, but still aiming for $50 million

Warner Bros.’s bet on Joker back in 2019 was a rare case of a studio supporting a bold take on an existing character, and their gamble paid off handsomely, with the japed crusader landing $96.2 million on opening weekend, and going on to score $335.4 million domestically and a breathtaking $1 billion dollars plus worldwide. A sequel was inevitable, and for a time the new movie looked as though it might post similar numbers to its predecessor (at least in North America). Tracking has been disappointing over the past few weeks, though, and reviews are mixed. Now we have preview numbers from last night, our model still thinks it will top $50 million on debut, but it might not get much further.

Here’s our model’s analysis for Joker: Folie á Deux going into the weekend. Note that the model’s estimate of current market strength is very low at the moment as we come out of the slowest time of year at the box office.

That weak market strength brought down our model’s expectations for this film substantially, but it turns out that it may have been prescient based on Joker’s Thursday previews:

There’s certainly room for Joker to hit $50 million, but when a film’s previews fall short of expectations, that usually means its weekend won’t get any better. The model’s final analysis—an opening of almost exactly $50 million—reflects lost confidence in the film.

For all that, $50 million is a great opening for this time of year. It’s just not what the studio would have been hoping for a couple of months ago.

White Bird is this weekend’s other major release. It’s another sequel to a surprise hit, and it was also expected to fall short of the previous installment:

With only $275,000 in previews, things don’t look great for White Bird this weekend, but all hope is not lost…

The model thinks a drama like this should have a high previews-to-weekend multiplier, and the fact that its preview total is ahead of expectations suggest that it has momentum.

Personally, I think it’s more likely that the $275,000 take on Thursday is more reflective of franchise fans wanting to catch the film early. If that’s true, it will fade away over the weekend, and fall well short of $6 million. The bottom line is that previews aren’t typically all that predictive for a drama like this, so the jury will remain out until we have some data from Friday and Saturday.

Here’s what the model thinks that top 10 will look like.

The numbers I’ll be awaiting most anxiously come Saturday morning are the ones for The Wild Robot. The model already thinks it’ll have a relatively strong hold in its second weekend. Word of mouth has been so good for the film that it could well break the $20-million barrier, which will give it an excellent chance of holding on to a lot of theaters in its third weekend and beyond.

The Substance is something of a wildcard this weekend. It has been doing good day-to-day business and dropped only 36% on its second weekend. If it manages to hold on to theaters, it could sneak back into the top 10, but we don’t have an official theater count from MUBI. Without it, it’s safer to assume it’ll lose a lot of locations and have a steeper fall than last time.

Likewise, in the absence of a theater count for Howl’s Moving Castle, we have to assume it will lose locations this weekend too, and also drop out of the top 10.

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com