Estimates:

# TITLE WEEKEND LOCATIONS AVG. TOTAL WKS. DIST.
1 Venom $80,030,000 — 4,250 — $18,831 $80,030,000 1 Sony / Columbia
2 A Star is Born $41,250,000 — 3,686 — $11,191 $42,600,000 1 Warner Bros.
3 Smallfoot $14,900,000 -35% 4,131 0 $3,607 $42,760,945 2 Warner Bros.
4 Night School $12,280,000 -55% 3,019 9 $4,068 $46,756,355 2 Universal
5 The House With A Clock In Its Walls $7,300,000 -42% 3,463 -129 $2,108 $55,056,560 3 Universal Pictures
6 A Simple Favor $3,435,000 -47% 2,408 -665 $1,426 $49,014,356 4 Lionsgate
7 The Nun $2,610,000 -52% 2,264 -1067 $1,153 $113,367,310 5 Warner Bros.
8 Hell Fest $2,075,000 -60% 2,297 0 $903 $8,864,476 2 Lionsgate / CBS Films
9 Crazy Rich Asians $2,060,000 -50% 1,466 -881 $1,405 $169,134,942 8 Warner Bros.
10 The Predator $900,000 -77% 1,643 -1283 $548 $49,985,889 4 Fox
11 Disney’s Christopher Robin $455,000 34% 1,638 968 $278 $98,122,382 10 Disney

Here we go again with Disney (AWIT and $100m, BP and $700m, Incredibles 2 and $600m) - will or won't Christopher Robin get to $100m...that is the question.

Incredibles 2 got no special treatment. It got the usual LD expansion, and would have passed the 600M mark on its own anyways.

Amazing for Venom, though it emphasizes the illiteracy problem in America. Need audio RT reviews.

Good point, Omni. Incredibles 2 suffered against JW2 but it held very well throughout the summer even facing against HT3, which came darn close to becoming the highest grosser domestically in the franchise.

Nah. If people want to see a movie they should see it fuck rotten tomatoes. I didn't like it but there are people who are enjoying it.

Warner Bros. is killing it with these mid sized hits.

I wonder if A Star Is Born overperforming means anything for Bohemian Rhapsody. Will audiences be craving more music dramas, or are they satiated?

RT is no longer credible, what with the 90%+ scores for the Disney's Saturday morning cartoon Marvel movies, along with amateurishly directed things like Crazy Rich Asians which only get positive scores because 'diversity' (it's literally in the recap blurb for that film).

Monstrous opening for Venom and a great opening for ASIB aswell. Both should end up in the $150-$200M range.

Brilliant for both openers and exactly what I expected.

October will be scorching at the BO.

I think Bohemian Rhapsody has a reasonable built in audience that will ensure it opens strong (as strong or stronger than ASIB). But it's legs will likely be weaker (unless its very very good and/or an awards contender).

Um

Where’s the mog image...Rev

What? Anyone that uses RT as a standard for what film they see is the moron.

Also I’m not sure the issue of illiteracy falls into this situation. Marketing has taken over reviews over the last 5 years

RT isn't what it used to be, I get it. But at the vey least, it can express a heavy sentiment for some films. Unless we're arguing that critics these days are just biased with their own agendas.

Revised Weekend Estimates:

A Star is Born - $42.91m ($44.26m including Tuesday and Wednesday previews)

Sunday drop was just 17%. I can't recall the last time an October film had a small drop like that.

Wow you're right. Even Gravity dropped 33.5% on Sunday. The Martian 37.5%. Gone Girl dropped 39.7% on Sunday. They were already predicting a better than usual 30% slide. 17% is pretty great. Though even Venom dropped just 18.9%. I assume it has something to do with government workers having off for Columbus Day though. Still these two held better than most.

We can also assume that most of the television scripted shows on Sunday night are not popular as they used to be. For example, The Walking Dead when it was in its popularity hurt a lot of the Sunday's grosses. But with their ratings down and football ratings not what it used to be (though it is up from last year), the Sunday drops are softer than they were back in the day during this time period.

Walking Dead didn't premiere till the second Sunday of October for all those movies mentioned. This is probably the first year it did lol

As far as wide release openers, Waiting... 2005, -16.9%. I only checked Columbus Day Sundays.

RT is still credible when the score is low - with a sub-40% you can be pretty sure the movie is a piece of crap. When the score is high, though, the score doesn't mean that much, especially when it comes to certain kinds of films (Superhero (Marvel on top), non-Disney/Pixar animated movies, and obviously the one you mentioned).

I don't pay much heed to it at all. Even if the score is low, it might just mean the film has something that could be construed as challenging far left dogma in any way shape or form. Movie reviewers are pretty obviously far left, and these days everything has to be made as political as possible.

Considering I've enjoyed many poorly reviewed movies in recent years, I'm not sure why I entertain critics anymore. Maybe I cling to a false belief that reviews correlate to BO prospects.

They can help or hurt over and above what a film would naturally do, sans reviews. But some films are more review-proof than others. In the MTC days I would correlate reviews vs. ratio of Actual to MTC. It was one of the better predictors over and above MTC.