Marvel will do well, but the rest of this year’s holiday offerings aren’t as strong as 2021
The first batch of box office estimates for Thanksgiving weekend landed on Wednesday, and they presage a weekend that will be great for Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” However, it is not important for the overall box office.
Throughout this year, studios and theaters have been looking for signs of improvement in theatrical grosses over the early stages of the pandemic reopening process in 2021, but it is looking like this Thanksgiving weekend will struggle to even match last year’s 5-day holiday overall total of $142 million, which was down 46% from the $246 million earned in Thanksgiving 2019.
That’s because while early industry estimates are predicting a $50 million-plus total for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” over the extended weekend — which would bring its domestic total past $350 million — the medley of new releases coming out are performing significantly worse than the films that were out last year.
Leading them is Disney’s “Strange World” Only $26 Million is projected for the weekend’s launch. Although these Wednesday projections may be preliminary, they could not reflect the actual launch. “Strange World” The film could be the first Walt Disney Animation Studios movie to win a Fri.-Sun. Since opening, less than $20,000,000 “Brother Bear” It all started in 2003.
Other five-day estimates for new releases include $9.7 million for Sony’s Korean War drama “Devotion,” $4.1 million for MGM’s horror romance “Bones and All” and $3 million for Universal’s Steven Spielberg drama “The Fabelmans,” This weekend, 638 theatres will be playing the film.
Netflix does not report numbers on its very limited engagement “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” However, with 600 screens it will likely add to the gross less than $10million.
That’s how bad it is! Compare to last year? While “Wakanda Forever” is doing better than 2021’s No. 1 Thanksgiving film “Encanto,” This film grossed $40.5 million. The second and third places films in the weekend’s top three grossing films both earned more than $20 millions. Sony’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” added $35 million over five days in its second weekend, MGM’s “House of Gucci” earned a $22 million extended opening, and Marvel’s tepidly-received “Eternals” It added $11 Million in its fourth weekend.
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