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EVIL DEAD RISE opening | THE COVENANT opening | New franchise series films | April 21 to 23, 2023 weekend

Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary

David A. Gross

Apr 23, 2023

1) Evil Dead Rise opening

- This is an excellent opening. Only 15 horror series have generated five episodes during the last 25 years (Conjuring/Annabelle/Nun, Resident Evil, Scream, Saw, Texas Chainsaw, Paranormal Activity, Insidious, among them). This opening should finish above average, with a small drop from the previous film’s opening. This is elite business:

Reviews for this bloodfest are excellent. The production cost was only $17m. Horror master Sam Raimi created the characters in 1981 with Evil Dead, and he oversaw development and production again this time. That legacy is helping broaden the audience beyond 18-to-34 year-olds.

2) The Covenant opening

- This is a weak start. Action war films are big movies — they average an $18.5m domestic first weekend. This 3-day number is well short of that. Reviews are very good and foreign business should be solid, but we're coming off a strong run of sharply defined, high-concept releases. That’s leaving less room for a title like this to find its place:

3) New franchise series films

- 2023 has 14 new franchise series films on the calendar, and the year is off to a good start with M3gan and Super Mario. These are movies that, by design, should or could continue. They help restock the schedule and maintain medium- and long-term momentum as other series age out.

Not every release is going to work, and there will be a surprise or two that comes out of nowhere — there always is. Overall, the lineup is very good:

- New series films were down during the pandemic, but it wasn’t just the pandemic; 2019 was an off-year as well. 2023 should provide a bounce-back after the extended softness — you can see it above.

As a group, we're assuming the 2023 titles will average $375m worldwide when they finish at the box office, which is a very doable number. This is another area where we see the industry recovering and gaining strength in 2023.
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