A HAUNTING IN VENICE opening | Where we are now | Taylor Swift | September 15 to 17, 2023 weekend
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A HAUNTING IN VENICE opening | Where we are now | Taylor Swift | September 15 to 17, 2023 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: September 15 to 17, 2023
1) A Haunting in Venice opening
- This is a lukewarm domestic opening for the 3rd episode in a crime mystery series. The estimated weekend is a bit below average. Critics reviews are very good, while audience ratings are good-not-great.
Overseas is where this series does well — you can see it below. At a cost of around $60m, the movie isn’t going to lose money after it finishes playing in the foreign markets:
Each of these Agatha Christie stories has a different title, a different story and a different setting. The connection is the central character, detective Hercule Poirot. With an emphasis on their differences, each film performs more like a spin-off than a sequel.
Death on the Nile (#2) opened during a rough period of the pandemic. That movie would have opened +40% higher under better conditions. Either way, the series has been declining after Murder on the Orient Express (#1) finished with a strong $352.8m worldwide in 2017.
2) Where we are now
- This is the weekend when Challengers would have opened, before moving to April 2024 due to the strikes. Today, when it comes to female stars, Margot Robbie and Zendaya are it. Challengers would have premiered at the Venice Film Festival two weeks ago; that’s a strong platform to launch from. The industry could use that title now, and all the publicity that comes with it.
Below is an update of current film counts and BO. Next month, Taylor Swift is going to smash every record for a concert movie in the history of the business. Concert films play quickly: they finish with a 2.2x multiple of their domestic opening weekend. If there's good 2nd weekend and repeat business, then Tay-Tay could save-save the fall box office. That would be a welcome development:
- The numbers above are fluid, with lots of variables to play out before the end of the year, including, most importantly, when the strikes will be resolved. Next weekend has Expend4bles. The thin release schedule is starting to bite now.
