Weekend Box Office Predictions: October 6th, 2023 to October 8th, 2023

As the lead-up to Halloween continues, this weekend sees the release of Universal and Blumhouse's The Exorcist: Believer. The R-rated horror sequel was directed by David Gordon Green and stars Leslie Odom Jr., Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Lidya Jewett, Olivia Marcum and Ellen Burstyn. The Exorcist: Believer is playing in 3,663 locations this weekend, will be playing on IMAX screens and has Thursday preview shows beginning at 5PM. The Exorcist: Believer is the first of a planned trilogy of Exorcist sequels, with the second film of the trilogy; The Exorcist: Deceiver already scheduled to be released in April of 2025. While the original The Exorcist film is among the highest grossing films of all-time when adjusting for ticket price inflation, follow-up films in the series have struggled at the box office over the years. The last film in The Exorcist series to receive a wide release, 2004's Exorcist: The Beginning, opened with $18.05 million and finished its domestic run with $41.82 million after experiencing significant front-loading. The hope was that in following in the footsteps of the recent Halloween trilogy of sequels, interest in The Exorcist would be revitalized. But that doesn't seem to be the case and on top of that the film's largely poor critical reviews will make it even harder for The Exorcist: Believer to break out at the box office. On a positive note, The Exorcist: Believer does carry a relatively modest price-tag, so the film is likely to perform fairly well with its cost in mind. BoxOfficeReport is predicting that The Exorcist: Believer will debut in first place this weekend with $29.0 million.

Last weekend saw Paramount's PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie take first place with a healthy debut of $22.76 million. That was an impressive 73.1 percent higher than the $13.15 million launch of 2021's PAW Patrol: The Movie. PAW Patrol: The Movie was fairly front-loaded for a family film (which is often the case for family films based on a television series) and declined 49.4 percent in its second weekend to gross $6.66 million. While PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie looks to have even better word of mouth among family audiences than its predecessor did (PAW Patrol: The Might Movie received a strong A rating on CinemaScore), that advantage could be balanced out this weekend by PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie being a sequel. And with Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples' Day and Thanksgiving in Canada on Monday, this weekend's gross for PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie will be spread out over four days, especially as a family film. With that in mind, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie could experience a similar second weekend hold as its predecessor, before potentially holding up better beyond this weekend. A 48.6 percent decline would give PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie a second place take of $11.7 million this weekend.

Lionsgate's Saw X and Disney, 20th Century and New Regency's The Creator are coming off of respective second and third place debuts of $18.31 million and $14.08 million. While Saw X performed in line with expectations, The Creator opened below consensus expectations and on top of that The Creator also carries a significantly larger price-tag than Saw X does. Saw X will obviously be facing new direct competition from The Exorcist: Believer this weekend, but good critical reviews and good word of mouth should help out Saw X, especially given the poor critical reviews for The Exorcist: Believer. As for The Creator, losing most (but not all) of its IMAX showtimes to The Exoricst: Believer and taking a significant showtimes per location hit from last weekend in general will make it difficult for The Creator to stabilize this weekend. Look for Saw X to decrease a sizable, but respectable 53.0 percent to take third place with $8.6 million and for The Creator to decline a sharp 56.7 percent to follow in fourth with $6.1 million.

This weekend will also see the 30th anniversary re-issue of Disney's Hocus Pocus. The 1993 Halloween themed family film received a re-issue back in October of 2020, which saw an estimated opening of $1.93 million from 2,570 locations. This time around Hocus Pocus isn't opening as wide (1,430 locations), but we're also not in the middle of the re-opening of theatres like we were in October of 2020 and Hocus Pocus also looks to be getting more average daily showtimes per location this weekend than it did for its 2020 opening. The successful streaming performance of last year's Hocus Pocus 2 on Disney+ could also give this re-issue of Hocus Pocus a small boost. Hocus Pocus could gross $2.5 million this weekend. That would potentially place Hocus Pocus in between The Nun II and A Haunting in Venice in this weekend's box office rankings. As for The Nun II and A Haunting in Venice, even with the new competition from The Exorcist: Believer, The Nun II could decline a solid 39.6 percent to gross $2.9 million, while A Haunting in Venice could decrease a very solid 33.8 percent to take in $2.4 million.

Read more at BoxOfficeReport.com.