Weekend projections: KPop Demon Hunters wins weekend

The KPop Demon Hunters Sing-Along Event will pull off a landmark box office win this weekend, topping the third weekend of Weapons by $18 million to $15.6 million, respectively, and becoming the first Netflix movie to top the weekend box office chart. With the rest of the weekend marked by movies targeted at niche audiences, the streaming crossover is a boost for theaters, although one that highlights how rarely Netflix takes advantage of their huge market power to make some money by selling tickets to events.

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

Netflix, as usual, didn’t release any official numbers for KPop Demon Hunters, so we’re using the numbers published by Deadline for our estimates. If we get any further details, we’ll post updates in the next day or so. What’s clear is that the animated musical special shows were the big story in theaters this weekend. Regardless of the actual outcome (and we don’t doubt the Deadline numbers are close), the question is whether Netflix will do more of this kind of thing in the future. To me, it feels like a one-off, even though I think Netflix is leaving a lot of money on the table by not putting more “content” on the big screen. Perhaps an event centered around the release of Stranger Things Season 5 at the end of the year would be worth a shot?

The rest of the market this weekend is a story of late-Summer releases earning modest sums. Honey Don’t is doing the best among them, and will land in the top 10 with $3 million. That’s a bit better than the $2.4 million picked up by Drive-Away Dolls last year, and also, incidentally, roughly on par with the $3.2 million earned by The Substance (also starring Margaret Qualley) when it opened in September last year.

On a site-related note, you should have noticed much improved responsiveness using The Numbers this weekend. While we’re continuing to work on improvements, your donations have already had an effect on making the site better, even though, unfortunately, we still needed to start delivering ads again. See below for ways you can help support us.

– 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