Weekend predictions: Planet of the Apes targeting $50 million this weekend

After a relatively soft start for The Fall Guy last weekend, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes looks like it will have a much more successful start, having already picked up $6.6 million from previews, compared to Fall Guy’s $3.15 million last Thursday. Our model thinks $50 million is the target for the apes on their opening weekend.

Here’s what the model thought of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes going into the weekend…

As always, the model’s prediction for a franchise film is derived from previous releases. We usually limit ourselves to releases in the last 10 years, but will include older films when that helps give us a bigger sample. Factoring in the current strength of the market, which knocks about $9 million from our weekend prediction, and our audience tracking, which adds back $2 million or so, we ended up with a prediction of around $50 million before we saw any preview numbers.

It turns out $6.6 million is right in line with a $50-million opening…

Our final prediction, $49.2 million, is close enough to $50 million that topping that important psychological number seems quite likely. If so, it’ll be the fourth film in the renewed franchise to hit that figure.

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

Aside from Planet of the Apes, Not Another Church Movie opens in 1,108 theaters, and has a shot at making the top 10.

Overall, it looks like we’ll have a welcome “up” week for the market. But we’ll be two weeks into the Summer season without the market hitting $100 million from all films—that’s a dismal start.

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