Weekend Box Office Predictions: July 19th, 2024 - July 21st, 2024

Universal and Warner Bros.'s Twisters will look to make a major impact at the box office this weekend. The standalone sequel to 1996's Twister is being released domestically by Universal and internationally by Warner Bros. Twisters was directed by Lee Isaac Chung and stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell and Anthony Ramos. Twisters is playing in 4,151 locations this weekend, is playing on IMAX screens, has Thursday preview shows beginning early at 2PM (and also had early access screenings on Wednesday). On the average, critical reviews for the film have been good. Back in 1996, the original Twister was a break-out blockbuster with a debut of $41.06 million and a final domestic gross of $241.72 million (and that's without taking into account 28 years of ticket price inflation). Twister had tremendous holding power for a film of its size, even by 1996 standards, and it will be interesting to see if Twisters could end up being naturally back-loaded by today's standards. Twisters did get off to a lackluster international start this past weekend with $11.0 million from 38 international markets. But the feeling is that the tornado themed film will play much stronger domestically, especially in the Midwest and in more rural areas of North America. BoxOfficeReport is predicting that Twisters will debut with a promising $64.0 million this weekend.

After leading the box office each of the past two weekends, fellow Universal release Despicable Me 4 will look to take second place this weekend. Last weekend Despicable Me 4 had a terrific second weekend hold, as the computer animated blockbuster sequel declined 41.9 percent to take in $43.60 million. Despicable Me 4 will continue to benefit this weekend from strong word of mouth and from the continued lack of new options for family audiences. However, Despicable Me 4 will be losing its IMAX screens to Twisters this weekend and Twisters will also serve as significant competition for the non-family component of the Despicable Me 4 audience (especially in the mentioned rural areas of North America). Look for Despicable Me 4 to decline a still respectable 42.7 percent to take in $25.0 million this weekend.

Disney and Pixar's Inside Out 2 re-stabilized nicely last weekend by declining 34.1 percent to place in third with $19.96 million. The computer animated event film may continue to re-stabilize further this weekend. A very solid 32.4 percent decline would transfer into a $13.5 million take for Inside Out 2 this weekend (the film's sixth frame). That would bring Inside Out 2 very close to reaching the $600 million domestic mark.

NEON's Longlegs should also remain a factor at the box office this weekend after last weekend's break-out $22.40 million second place start. While Longlegs doesn't appear to be going over quite as well with audiences as it has with critics (Longlegs received a modest C+ rating on CinemaScore), the R-rated horror thriller has nonetheless continued to perform well during the midweek this week (suggesting that word of mouth is likely stronger than the film's rating on CinemaScore indicates). Furthermore, the positive news from the film's break-out performance at the box office and the fact that Longlegs is holding onto a very high percentage of its average daily showtimes per location from last weekend (and at some theatres will even be seeing an increase in daily showtimes) are factors that should both help out this weekend's second weekend hold. BoxOfficeReport is predicting that Longlegs will decrease a very respectable 45.1 percent to take fourth place this weekend with $12.3 million.

Read more at BoxOfficeReport.com.