Weekend projections: franchise spin-offs fall short as Moana and Wicked continue box office dominance

Once more, it’s the Moana 2 and Wicked show in theaters this weekend, with Moana taking first-place honors in its 3rd weekend in release and Wicked coming a close second in its fourth weekend. Kraven the Hunter will land a disappointing third, and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim an even more disappointing fifth on their opening weekends.

Here’s how the weekend numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…

Overall, this is looking like a much weaker weekend than the model anticipated. That’s partly down to timing. This is a typical lull between Thanksgiving and the Christmas Holiday season. But the weakness of the two new releases is contributing significantly to the issue. Both of them are coming in well short of our Friday-morning prediction, which was based primarily on their Thursday preview numbers. That’s a sign that they are playing only to the core audience for each franchise, and not picking up much business from word-of-mouth recommendations or general buzz.

The $11-million debut of Kraven the Hunter is behind Madame Web’s $15.3 million, and far short of Morbius’ $39 million. Both of those films were considered duds at the time, and Kraven continues the downward trend. Simply put, super hero franchises need something really special to draw audiences to theaters these days. The picture for Kraven isn’t much better internationally, with just $15 million projected for the weekend.

The story for War of the Rohirrim is a little more nuanced, since this is an animated spin-off from the venerable Lord of the Rings franchise (Peter Jackson edition). Warner Bros. was quick to point out this morning that Rohirrim “was fast-tracked to ensure New Line did not lose the film adaptation rights for Tolkein’s novels while the LOTR trio—Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens—worked through the creative vision for the next live-action movies in the LOTR series of films.”

So The War of the Rohirrim makes financial sense for the studio, the argument goes, because it allows them to make The Hunt for Gollum, which is expected to be one of their tentpoles in 2026. Which is fair enough, to a point, but doesn’t make this weekend’s results any less disappointing. Rohirrim will snag just $4 million internationally this weekend, taking it to $5.7 million in total outside North America. Its top market is the United Kingdom, with a slender $607,000.

Moana 2 continues to pile on money around the world. It now has $379.5 million internationally, for a global total of $717 million. It remains the top non-local film in all “material markets” according to Disney, with France leading with $40.5 million, and totals over $20 million in four other territories: the United Kingdom ($33.5 million), Germany ($24.8m), Mexico ($23.5m), and Brazil ($21.1m).

Wicked crosses $500 million worldwide this weekend, with $165 million internationally. The United Kingdom is by far its biggest market, with $55.2 million to date. It has picked up $20.1 million in Australia, and $12 million in Korea. It will open with $4.9 million in Germany this weekend.

– 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