Weekend Box Office Predictions: July 28th, 2023 to July 30th, 2023

Last weekend saw Warner Bros.'s Barbie debut with a truly exceptional $162.02 million. While an opening weekend performance of that size is always impressive, making the performance even more impressive is that Barbie had a much smaller than usual premium screen footprint for a film of this size. In turn, that will help Barbie hold up better than usual this weekend, as the film won't be dealing with the type of second weekend loss of premium screens that many films experience (on a smaller relative scale, Barbie will be losing Dolby Cinema screens to Haunted Mansion). Barbie will also be holding onto a very high percentage of its overall showtimes per location from last weekend and will be opening in an additional 94 locations (for a total of 4,337 locations this weekend). With the possible exception of this past Saturday (where capacity limitations may have come into play) Barbie has also been displaying terrific daily holding power thus far. On Wednesday, the film declined a slim 11.4 percent to gross $23.03 million for the day. Clearly, Barbie has gone over very well with audiences, as suggested by the film's strong A rating on CinemaScore. Another factor that may help both Barbie and Oppenheimer this weekend, is that there may be a large amount of moviegoers who wanted to see both films, but were ultimately only able to find time to see one film last weekend, before potentially seeing the other film this weekend. With all of the positive factors going for it, Barbie looks poised for a massive second weekend performance. Barbie could decline just 37.7 percent to gross $101.0 million this weekend. That would represent the seventh largest second weekend gross of all-time; one spot ahead of $92.35 million second weekend gross of The Super Mario Bros. Movie this past April.

Universal's Oppenheimer is coming off of an opening weekend performance of $82.46 million. Like Barbie, Oppenheimer has displayed terrific daily holding power thus far and on Wednesday Oppenheimer declined a slim 11.7 percent to gross $10.66 million for the day. While Barbie has been holding up slightly better than Oppenheimer thus far, the two films have been experiencing fairly similar daily holds and Oppenheimer could prove to be more weekend-heavy / less weekday-heavy than Barbie, due in part to the 180-minute run-time of Oppenheimer and differences in the demographic breakdown for both films. Oppenheimer will be aided this weekend by continuing to play on IMAX screens, which were responsible for an estimated 26 percent of last weekend's overall domestic opening weekend gross. In addition, Oppenheimer is holding onto a high percentage of its showtimes per location from last weekend. Oppenheimer also looks to be going over very well with audiences, as like Barbie, it too also received a strong A rating on CinemaScore. A decline of just 36.9 percent would transfer into a second weekend gross of $52.0 million for Oppenheimer.

The weekend's highest profile new release is Disney's Haunted Mansion. The horror comedy based on the Disney theme park attraction was directed by Justin Simien and stars LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson and Chase W. Dillon. The film is playing in 3,740 locations this weekend and has Thursday preview shows beginning at 4PM. Critical reviews for the film have been mixed, but more so negative than positive. Without taking into account ticket-price inflation, the 2003 version of The Haunted Mansion debuted with an opening weekend of $24.28 million and a five-day Thanksgiving weekend start of $34.05 million. Haunted Mansion will likely have a larger three-day opening weekend than The Haunted Mansion had, but in three days, probably won't be able to gross what The Haunted Mansion did in five days. In addition to the potential negative impact of the film's critical reviews, it will obviously be tough for Haunted Mansion to break-out this weekend in the face of Barbenheimer. BoxOfficeReport is predicting that Haunted Mansion will debut in third place this weekend with $27.5 million.
Angel Studios's Sound of Freedom still isn't showing any real signs of significant slowing, as last weekend the film declined just 27.3 percent to take third with $19.83 million. Sound of Freedom looks to be the one film in the current marketplace largely unaffected by Barbie and Oppenheimer. And as was the case last weekend, Sound of Freedom is holding onto an especially high percentage of its showtimes per location this weekend; as well as opening in an additional 126 locations this weekend (for a total of 3,411 locations). It seems likely that Sound of Freedom will be able to hold up even better this weekend than it did last weekend, so the break-out film could decline only 17.8 percent from last weekend to place in fourth with $16.3 million.

Paramount's Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is coming off of a sharp second weekend decline, in which the film was down 64.6 percent to place in fourth with $19.35 million. In a more typical situation, a well-received, high-profile film like Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One would usually recover in its third weekend. However, due to the continued might of Barbenheimer (as well as Haunted Mansion entering the marketplace), this isn't a typical situation and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One will already be losing 1,130 locations this weekend as a result (for a location count of 3,191), as well as taking another significant hit to its showtimes per location average in the locations holding onto the film this weekend. Look for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One to decline 46.8 percent this weekend for a fifth place take of $10.3 million.

Also opening in theatres this weekend is A24's Talk to Me. The R-rated horror film from Australia was directed by Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou and has a cast that features Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Otis Dhanji and Miranda Otto. Thursday previews for the film begin at 4PM. The trailers for Talk to Me seem to have gone over rather well and critical reviews for the film are very strong. Break-out potential that Talk to Me may have earlier had will likely be held back in the face of Barbenheimer, but there should still be at least somewhat of an audience for Talk to Me this weekend. BoxOfficeReport is predicting that Talk to Me will debut in sixth place with $7.5 million (with the film having potential to hold up well beyond this weekend).

Read more at BoxOfficeReport.com.