Weekend Box Office Predictions: August 9th, 2024 - August 11th, 2024

This weekend Hollywood power couple Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively will occupy the top two spots at the box office with Disney's Deadpool & Wolverine and Sony's It Ends With Us. Combined, the two films could potentially gross $100 million this weekend domestically.

Deadpool & Wolverine didn't show any signs of slowing down in its second frame last weekend, as the blockbuster comic book adaptation declined 54.2 percent to take in $96.81 million. That represented the eighth largest second weekend gross of all-time. Deadpool & Wolverine has continued to stabilize during the midweek and on Wednesday the film was down 49.0 percent from the previous Wednesday. While Deadpool & Wolverine will continue to play on IMAX screens this weekend, the film will be losing some of its IMAX showtimes to Borderlands. In addition, the film will be losing a sizable amount of non-IMAX showtimes per location to this weekend's new releases as a whole. To help make up for that Deadpool & Wolverine is adding an additional 100 locations this weekend (for a total of 4,330 locations) and obviously the film will continue to benefit from its strong word of mouth with audiences. Looking back at the third weekend performances of the previous two Deadpool films, 2016's Deadpool declined 44.9 percent in its third weekend (to gross $31.12 million) and 2018's Deadpool 2 decreased 46.7 percent (to take in $23.18 million). Deadpool & Wolverine could continue to hold up better than its predecessors this weekend, by declining 43.2 percent to gross $55.0 million. That would represent the eleventh largest third weekend gross of all-time and would already bring Deadpool & Wolverine close to reaching the $500 million domestic mark.

It Ends With Us stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, while Baldoni also directed the film. The romance film is based upon the Colleen Hoover romance novel of the same name, which has a very large following. The following of the novel will give the film a pre-established fanbase, and that fanbase only looks to be growing, thanks in part to Lively's role in the film. It Ends With Us is playing in 3,611 locations this weekend, has Thursday preview shows beginning early at 2PM and also had early access shows on Wednesday. Critical reviews for It Ends With Us have been mixed, but the film is likely to be critic proof, especially on opening weekend given the film's pre-established fanbase. It Ends With Us appears to be headed for a break-out start this weekend and potentially could have an opening weekend performance similar to that of The Fault in Our Stars way back in June of 2014. That film, which was also based on a popular novel, debuted with $48.00 million. One factor to watch for this weekend and beyond is that It Ends With Us could prove to be relatively stronger from Monday through Friday in comparison to the relative strength of the film's performances on Saturdays and Sundays, due in part to the likely audience demographics of the film. BoxOfficeReport is predicting that It Ends With Us will debut in second place this weekend with an exceptional $45.0 million.

Last weekend Universal's Twisters stabilized very nicely by declining 34.8 percent to hold steady in second place with $22.80 million. And on Tuesday Twisters passed the $200 million domestic mark. Twisters will likely continue to stabilize further this weekend, thanks in part to continued strong word of mouth, some natural relative built-in back-loading and in part to the film looking to hold onto a high percentage of its average showtimes per location this weekend. While audience demographics for the two films aren't exactly the same, Twisters could still take a slight hit this weekend from It Ends With Us due in part to It Ends With Us potentially playing well in more rural areas of North America. Look for Twisters to decline a very solid 32.0 percent this weekend to gross $15.5 million.

Also opening in wide release this weekend is Lionsgate's Borderlands. The theatrical adaptation of the popular Borderlands video game series was directed by Eli Roth and features Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu and Jamie Lee Curtis. Borderlands is playing in 3,125 locations this weekend, will be getting some IMAX showtimes this weekend and has Thursday preview shows beginning at 3PM. Unfortunately for the pricey Borderlands, critical reviews for the film have been terrible. That will likely lead to additional front-loading for what was probably going to be a front-loaded film to begin with; as early as this weekend. Borderlands could debut in fourth place this weekend with a modest $11.0 million, before falling off quickly in the weeks ahead.

NEON's Cuckoo also arrives in theatres this weekend. The R-rated horror film was directed by Tilman Singer and stars Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens and Jessica Henwick. Cuckoo is opening in an estimated 1,500 locations this weekend and has Thursday preview shows beginning at 7PM. On the average, critical reviews for Cuckoo have been good, but not great. NEON has had past success with horror films this year, as the recent Longlegs opened with $22.40 million last month and Immaculate debuted with $5.34 million back in March. Cuckoo should open much more along the lines of Immaculate, especially since Cuckoo looks to be a less mainstream horror film with a smaller location count. Cuckoo could start out with a respectable $4.0 million this weekend, which would likely place the film in eighth this weekend.

Read more at BoxOfficeReport.com.