BOOK CLUB 2: THE NEXT CHAPTER opening | HYPNOTIC opening | May 12 to 14, 2023 weekend
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BOOK CLUB 2: THE NEXT CHAPTER opening | HYPNOTIC opening | May 12 to 14, 2023 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: May 12 to 14, 2023
1) Book Club 2: The Next Chapter opening
- This is slow start for a follow-up to a low-budget romantic comedy. On average, romantic comedy sequels open -23% lower than the first movie. This is double that drop, at below average levels.
Older audiences take their time getting to these movies: The first film cost only $14m, opened to $13.6m and finished with $104.4m worldwide — that’s an outstanding 5.1x domestic multiple. At a cost of $20m, with modest foreign potential, Book Club 2 will need that kind of staying power to be profitable:
2) Hypnotic opening
- This is a weak opening for a film that was conceived before the pandemic. The movie cost around $65m to make. Even five years ago, that was a lot of money for a routine crime mystery. This kind of material is on the small screen now.
The strongest crime stories are from auteurs who put a strong stamp on their films (Scorsese, Tarantino, Fincher). The environment is as challenging as ever — crime mysteries need a sharp, original edge to work theatrically:
- This is a quiet weekend between big movies. Holdover business has been good: Guardians 3 wknd #2, Super Mario wknd #6, Evil Dead 5 wknd #4, Are You There God? wknd #3, John Wick 4 wknd #8, Dungeons & Dragons wknd #7, and Air wknd #6 continue to play well. New business picks up next weekend with Fast X, #10 in the Fast & Furious series, and then Little Mermaid/live-action the weekend after that.