Weekend projections: Ballerina posts relatively modest $25 million as Lilo & Stitch stays top

Ballerina may be “From the World of John Wick,” but it isn’t performing as well as one would hope for a film from that franchise. That will let Lilo & Stitch stay top at the box office this weekend, even though it will decline a fairly steep 47% in its third weekend.

Here are the official studio projections for the three-day weekend (click the image for a full chart of all films reporting so far):

The $14.4-million opening of the original John Wick is equivalent to almost exactly $20 million today in ticket-price-inflation-adjusted terms, so Ballerina is coming in slightly stronger than that, and will surely benefit somewhat from good reviews and word-of-mouth. But its reported $90 million budget means it will need unusually long legs to be profitable. Our model predicts it will finish with around $70 million domestically based on its performance so far. Its international opening is virtually the same as its domestic one—$26 million, compared with $25 million—which means it’s currently on course for something around $140 million to $150 million worldwide.

The one saving grace for Ballerina might be that John Wick movies have generally performed well on the home market. Our estimated revenue for John Wick: Chapter 4 from transactional VOD is around $100 million domestically. A similar performance, relatively speaking, for Ballerina would keep it from being a significant money loser for Lionsgate, but the road to profitability, and any chance of a Ballerina 2, looks like a long one.

This weekend’s other US-produced new entry in the top 10 is The Phoenician Scheme, which is performing broadly in line with other Wes Anderson releases. Its $6.25 million compares to $9.05 million for Asteroid City on its first weekend in wide release, and $2.6 million for The French Dispatch back in 2021, when the pandemic was still very much on the minds of Anderson’s core demographic.

Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye’s $3.1-million weekend is a substantial increase from the $925,000 earned by its predecessor last year.

This weekend’s most notable debutant in limited release is The Life of Chuck, which will earn an projected $216,000 from 16 theaters, per Neon. Cracking $10,000 per theater is always a good sign, but pales compared to the $93,417 theater average enjoyed by The Phoenician Scheme last weekend. Life of Chuck still has time to build, but it doesn’t look like a guaranteed hit at this point.

– Studio weekend projections

– All-time top-grossing movies in North America

– All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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