Weekend Box Office Predictions: July 7th - July 9th, 2023

This weekend could see a very close race for first place at the domestic box office between Sony's Insidious: The Red Door (in its first weekend) and Disney's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (in its second weekend).

Sony and Blumhouse's Insidious: The Red Door represents the fifth installment of the Insidious series. The PG-13 rated horror film was directed by Patrick Wilson and stars Wilson, Ty Simpkins, Rose Byrne, Andrew Astor and Lin Shaye. Insidious: The Red Door is playing in 3,188 locations this weekend and has Thursday preview shows beginning at 4PM. The previous film in the series, 2018's Insidious: The Last Key (which was released by Universal) debuted with $29.58 million, while 2015's Insidious: Chapter 3 (which was released by Focus) opened with $22.69 million. There still appears to be a similar level of interest in the Insidious series with Insidious: The Red Door and the film could be headed towards an opening weekend performance in between those of Insidious: The Last Key and Insidious: Chapter 3, especially with the benefit of ticket price inflation over the years. There not having been a breakout opening weekend performance for a horror film since the $24.50 million start of Evil Dead Rise back in late April could also help Insidious: The Red Door this weekend. One factor that may prevent Insidious: The Red Door from potentially breaking out even further this weekend is that the film looks to be getting a rather average amount of showtimes per location for a high-profile horror sequel. BoxOfficeReport is predicting that Insidious: The Red Door will debut with $27.0 million this weekend.

Last weekend Disney and Lucasfilm's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny started out on the lower end of consensus expectations with respective three-day and five-day debuts of $60.37 million and $83.86 million. On a positive note, through Tuesday Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny had been displaying encouraging initial holding power. However, on Wednesday the film declined a very sharp 52.7 percent (to gross $5.54 million), which is obviously a concern heading into the weekend. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will be helped out a bit this weekend by holding onto its IMAX screens. While the B+ CinemaScore rating for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was slightly better than the B CinemaScore rating received by 2008's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the B+ rating on its own isn't that great for a high-profile action-adventure sequel. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull declined 55.3 percent in its second weekend (to gross $44.75 million), but that was also with the film's three-day opening weekend having been deflated a bit by having a full Thursday opening day. A similar 56.1 percent decline would give Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny a second weekend gross of $26.5 million.

This week has already seen Angel Studios's Sound of Freedom become a major box office story with an impressive two-day start of $18.29 million through Wednesday (including significant previews on Monday, as well a reported $2.68 million from the film's Pay It Forward tickets program). The Alejandro Monteverde directed action thriller set in the world of child trafficking stars Jim Caviezel and also features Mira Sorvino, Bill Camp, Kurt Fuller and Eduardo Verástegui. Sound of Freedom has been playing in 2,634 locations during the midweek and the film's location count will increase a bit to 2,850 locations starting on Friday. Due in part to heavy pre-sales with faith-based and conservative audiences, Sound of Freedom is likely to be especially front-loaded towards its midweek start. At the same time, some of that built-in front-loading could be offset over the weekend thanks in part to very strong initial word of mouth (and potential repeat viewings), as Sound of Freedom received a perfect A+ rating on CinemaScore. Sound of Freedom could take third place over the weekend with $13.5 million, which would give the film roughly $35.5 million since it started playing on Monday.

Disney and Pixar's Elemental and Sony's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse remained very close to one another last weekend with respective three-day grosses of $12.13 million and $12.01 million. While the two films should remain fairly close to one another in this weekend's rankings, the current lead for Elemental may increase a bit this weekend thanks in part to having the better showtimes per location hold between the two films this weekend and in part to the fact that far more moviegoers have already seen Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in comparison to Elemental thus far overall. Elemental could decrease just 24.1 percent to place in fourth this weekend with $9.2 million, while Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse could decline a solid 34.2 percent to follow in fifth with $7.9 million.

Also opening in theaters this weekend is Lionsgate's Joy Ride, The R-rated comedy was directed by Adele Lim and stars Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, and Sabrina Wu. Joy Ride is playing in 2,820 locations this weekend, has Thursday preview shows beginning at 3PM and also had additional preview shows on Wednesday night (which is sure to inflate the film's preview gross). Critical reviews for Joy Ride have been very strong; however, similar to the situation with Lionsgate's well-received The Blackening a few weeks ago, there doesn't seem to be all that much overall interest in Joy Ride despite the strong critical reviews. If Joy Ride goes over as well with audiences as it has with critics the film may be able to hold up well in the weeks ahead as an alternative choice to this July's larger films, but as for this weekend Joy Ride could be headed for a modest debut of $7.8 million, which would place the film in a close race for fifth place with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Read more at BoxOfficeReport.com.