Weekend Box Office Predictions: January 5th, 2024 to January 7th, 2024

For the first weekend of 2024, it's looking to be a fairly close race at the domestic box office between Warner Bros.'s Wonka (in its fourth weekend) and Universal's Night Swim (in its first weekend).

Last weekend Warner Bros.'s Wonka returned to first place at the domestic box office with respective three-day and four-day holiday weekend grosses of $22.48 million and $29.11 million. Beyond New Year's Day on Monday, daily business for Wonka on Tuesday and Wednesday has been good, but also not out of this world for this time of year. Last weekend Wonka received a bit of a boost from returning to IMAX screens and this weekend the film will continue to split IMAX screens with fellow Warner Bros. release Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Wonka and holdovers in general will also be helped out this weekend by Night Swim being the only new wide release entering the marketplace. BoxOfficeReport is predicting that Wonka will decline a very solid 30.2 percent from last weekend to hold steady in first place this weekend with $15.7 million.

Night Swim represents the latest horror film from Universal and Blumhouse. The PG-13 rated horror film was directed by Bryce McGuire and stars Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Amélie Hoeferle and Gavin Warren. Night Swim was produced by James Wan (through Atomic Monster) and Jason Blum. Night Swim will be playing in 3,250 locations this weekend and has Thursday preview shows beginning at 5PM. Traditionally early January is a strong time of year for horror films and just last year Universal and Blumhouse's M3GAN broke out in a big way with a debut of $30.43 million. However, expectations for Night Swim are much lower, due in part to the film not being able to break out over social media like M3GAN did prior to release. And while horror films often tend to be critic proof, the largely negative critical reviews for Night Swim will make a break-out performance more difficult for the film. Still, the film's PG-13 rating, a relatively high amount of showtimes per location and being the first horror film of the year are all factors that could lead to stronger than expected walk up business this weekend. A better opening weekend comparison for Night Swim could prove to be Universal's Knock at the Cabin, which started out with $14.13 million last February. BoxOfficeReport is predicting that Night Swim will debut in a fairly close second place this weekend with $14.5 million.

It was a close race for second place last weekend between Warner Bros.'s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Universal and Illumination's Migration during the respective second weekends of both films. Aquaman and Lost Kingdom ultimately outpaced Migration last weekend with respective three-day and four-day holiday weekend grosses of $18.27 million and $23.52 million, in comparison to respective three-day and four-day holiday grosses of $17.01 million and $22.10 million for Migration. The two films are likely to remain close to one another this weekend, though Migration likely has a slightly better chance to take third place this weekend. Migration could decline just 29.5 percent from last weekend to take in $12.0 million this weekend, while Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom could decrease a solid 36.0 percent from last weekend for a weekend gross of $11.7 million. Those performances would bring Migration to the brink of the $80 million domestic mark and take Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom just past the $100 million domestic mark.

After getting off to a so-so start over Christmas weekend, Sony's Anyone But You has displayed terrific holding power since then. On Wednesday the romantic comedy placed in fourth for the day with $2.14 million, which represented a decrease of only 18.4 percent from the previous Wednesday. And given that last Wednesday's performance was inflated by the holidays, it's highly likely that Anyone But You will experience a weekend percentage decline even lower than Wednesday's percentage decline. Especially good holds also aren't completely unheard of this weekend; back in 2018 The Greatest Showman declined a slim 11.3 percent the weekend after New Year's weekend, while last year Puss in Boots: The Last Wish decreased 19.5 percent over the same frame. Anyone But You could hold up exceptionally well this weekend by declining a very slim 9.7 percent to place in fifth with $7.9 million.

During their respective first full weekends of release last weekend, Warner Bros.'s The Color Purple had respective three-day and four-day holiday grosses of $11.74 million and $14.35 million, while Amazon MGM Studios' The Boys in the Boat had respective three-day and four-day grosses of $8.40 million and $10.67 million. With The Color Purple continuing to display major front-loading thus far, the two films will likely find themselves much closer to one another on this weekend's box office chart. The Color Purple could fall a sizable 49.7 percent for $5.9 million this weekend and The Boys in the Boat could decline a very solid 31.0 percent to gross a similar $5.8 million.

Read more at BoxOfficeReport.com.