ARTHUR THE KING opening | 2024 film counts and box office | March 15 to 17, 2024 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: March 15 to 17, 2024
1) Arthur the King opening
- This is a fair opening for a character-driven adventure film. The start is a bit below average for the genre. Audience scores are excellent (an A CinemaScore), with lukewarm critics’ reviews. Overseas potential is good-not-great.
Most adventures like this are rated PG. This movie is PG-13. It’s not a family film or a comedy, but it’s not a hard adventure for moviegoers who like edgier entertainment. All of that complicates the sell. In the end, at a cost of less than $20m, the movie will do fine with healthy ancillary business:
Love Lies Bleeding and The American Society of Magical Negroes
- There are two other wide releases this weekend, but their screen counts are limited: Love Lies Bleeding on 1,362 screens, and The American Society of Magical Negroes on 1,147 screens. These are indie films, so we’re going to skip the charts.
Love Lies is opening to around $2.75m (outstanding reviews, a 92 RT score), while American Society is opening to around $1.25m (reviews are not good, a 30 RT score). Neither movie is crossing over to mainstream audiences.
- This weekend is dominated by strong holdover business from Kung Fu Panda and Dune. After two outstanding weeks with the total box office down only -6% below the pre-pandemic average, this week’s total BO is going to be down by over -40%.
2) 2024 film counts and box office
- The number of wide releases in 2024 should finish at approx. 125, which is the number we had in 2023. At this point, we see 52 franchise series films, just below last year's 56. That figure should rise when we get to a couple of surprise titles that over-perform and turn into series.
As always, the series titles drive the box office; they account for around 80% of worldwide business:
- It's still early in the year and the release calendar is far from set. There are reserved dates for "untitled/undesignated" pictures — we have to see what happens with those (Angel Studios is holding six of them). We don't know how many year-end awards films will get wide releases. And indie distributors will continue to schedule titles at late notice when they see a weekend they like.
Among the series films, the schedule has already picked up with Dune and Kung Fu Panda. Next weekend is Ghostbusters, in two weeks is Godzilla x Kong, and later come The Fall Guy, Planet of the Apes, Mad Max, Bad Boys, Inside Out, A Quiet Place, Despicable Me, Twisters, Deadpool, Beetlejuice, Transformers, Joker, Wicked, and Lord of the Rings, et al. That’s strong.
But the key to the year will be the surprises, the movies that don't necessarily look like a sure thing on paper, but turn into $500 million-plus hits. A half-dozen titles on the schedule have that potential. A couple of them will need to break through to help keep the box office healthy.