Weekend projections: Predator: Badlands projected to hit $40 million on debut

After a dismal month or two for new movies, we finally have a new release that’s being met with enthusiasm by moviegoers. Predator: Badlands will open with around $40 million this weekend, according to 20th Century Studios (aka Disney). If that number holds up, it’ll be the best debut (ignoring inflation) for any film in the Predator franchise, beating 2004’s AVP: Alien vs. Predator.

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

With another $40 million projected internationally this weekend, Disney are claiming this as the “strongest global opening … at current rates, surpassing The Predator’s $73.5M.” That claim comes with a bit of an asterisk, because the original films in the franchise were released at a time when studios rolled out releases internationally over many months, which makes head-to-head comparisons tricky. However one slices it, though, this is a great start, and Disney’s decision to concentrate on a PG-13 version of the franchise looks vindicated.

What’s particularly encouraging about the launch is the way the film has gained momentum through the weekend. Our baseline prediction for the movie was for a weekend somewhere around $27.5 million. Our audience tracking boosted that figure to $29 million as of Wednesday. Thursday’s previews pointed towards a weekend around $32 million, with the model (correctly) moving its prediction up to $33.3 million. This morning’s projection from Disney suggests excellent word-of-mouth, and the studio reports an A- rating from CinemaScore, a best for the franchise.

The other standout performer this weekend is Regretting You, which will be down just 9% from last weekend. Reports of its weekend win last weekend were premature, as it ended behind Black Phone 2 when final numbers were in. This result is unambiguous, however. Even taking into account a favorable comparison to last weekend, when grosses were deflated by Halloween, clearly this romantic drama has excellent legs. Our model now predicts a final domestic total for the film of $48 million, up from $37.7 million based on its opening weekend. Earning 3.5 times opening weekend is an excellent result these days, and the film might hang around long enough to benefit from Thanksgiving.

Looking further down the chart, Sarah’s Oil is performing best among the remaining new releases. Due to an oversight on my part, our prediction for this movie wasn’t included in our Friday article and published prediction. My apologies! For the record, here’s what our model predicted for the movie.

The bottom line is that Sarah’s Oil is landing at close to double our model’s prediction. Another strong performers this weekend compared to the prediction is Nuremberg, which I noted on Friday was almost certainly being under-estimated by our model, and is arriving with a very respectable $4-million. Die, My Love is also doing a little better than expected.

Finally, and getting an honorable mention for finishing 11th this weekend, is Christy. That’s somewhat below our Friday-morning prediction, but Black Bear Pictures shouldn’t be too disappointed with the result. It’s very rare for a new distributor to land a movie in the top 10, for a whole host of reasons, and this is a movie that could have decent legs, given its reviews.

– Studio weekend projections

– All-time top-grossing movies in North America

– All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

Please help support The Numbers with a monthly or one-time donation, or by subscribing to The Numbers Business Report. We keep advertising to a minimum. If you’d like to advertise your movie or service with us, please email us at advertising(at)the-numbers.com.

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