'Spider-Man: Far from Home' Hopes to Set Off Some Box Office Fireworks
SATURDAY AM UPDATE: Sony's Spider-Man: Far from Home brought in an estimated $32.5 million on Friday, pushing the film's domestic gross just shy of $125 million after four days in release. At this point the film is looking to deliver anywhere from $180-190 million in its first six days of release. The film received an "A" CinemaScore from opening day audiences.

A24's Midsommar is the week's other new wide release and the film brought in an estimated $2.2 million on Friday, giving the feature a domestic cume totaling $6.57 million since debuting on Wednesday. Current expectations are for a $10-11 million five day opening. The film received a "C+" CinemaScore from opening day audiences.

You can check out all of the Friday estimates right here and we'll be back tomorrow morning with a complete look at the weekend.

WEDNESDAY AM UPDATE: Sony's Spider-Man: Far from Home brought in $39.25 million on Tuesday, marking the largest Tuesday debut of all-time, besting the previous record set by Sony's The Amazing Spider-Man, which opened with $137 million over its six-day debut back in July 2012. Despite the performance, Sony is still projecting a $125 million six-day performance.

Additionally, A24 reports Midsommar kicked off its five-day holiday opening with $1.1 million from Tuesday night previews in advance of the film's release today. The performance is just a bit behind the $1.3 million brought in by Hereditary from Thursday night previews.

You can check out our weekend preview below.

WEEKEND PREVIEW: Last weekend was the third consecutive weekend in a row that saw the weekend box office perform below the same weekend in 2018 as the yearly box office is still around -9.5% behind last year's totals. This week the weekend begins much earlier with the Tuesday release of Spider-Man: Far from Home and the Wednesday release of Midsommar as Sony and A24 attempt to get out ahead of the July 4 holiday, which can see grosses dwindle a little bit due to Fourth of July festivities and pre-holiday travel.

Looking to top the weekend box office is Sony's release of Spider-Man: Far from Home, which is being sold as the final chapter in Marvel's "Phase Three" and the beginning of "Life After Avengers". The pic is jumping into over 4,600 theaters this Tuesday, which is far from a typical start at this time of year. There are few-to-no previous releases of this stature that have had a similar start and looking at releases such as 2007's Transformers and 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man, both films released on the Tuesday ahead of the July 4 holiday, but both released on July 3, which means their respective $155.4 million and $137 million six-day openings aren't exactly apples-to-apples comps given July 4 falls on Thursday this year.

With no preview showings last night, Far from Home began playing in 4,634 theaters today and Sony is anticipating an opening around $125 million for the film's first six days, which seems quite conservative. Industry expectations are closer to $170-190 million for the six-day frame and we're definitely within that range for a multitude of reasons. To begin, reviews have been almost entirely positive — 92% on RottenTomatoes and 69 on Metacritic — and online ticket retailer Fandango.com reports the film is out-pacing Spider-Man: Homecoming at the same point in the sales cycle.

If we were to look for a possible reason the film could come in on the lower end, the Spider-Man character has had a large presence on the big screen lately. Since the character's introduction in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2016's Captain America: Civil War he has been featured in a new film each of the consecutive years, including his own feature in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming as well as the unrelated animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which just began streaming on Netflix last week. Is it at all possible the character has been just a bit too visible as of late, or have the small samplings of Tom Holland as Peter Parker in non-Spider-Man specific features only enamored the character to the audience further?

Caveats aside, Homecoming opened with an impressive $117 million back in July 2017 and should Far from Home deliver on the studio's $125 million expectations we're talking about only $8 million more over the course of three additional days (though the lack of preview showings does make it closer to two-and-a-half days). That's a bit difficult to come to terms with and why we can't forecast a performance that low, especially with a well-reviewed Marvel movie coming on the heels of the second largest worldwide release ever in Avengers: Endgame. That said, a look at IMDb page views are a bit lower than expected when compared to the likes of Ant-Man and the Wasp and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, not to mention the original picture that does have us lowering our expectations a bit.

Overall, we're currently anticipating a six-day opening around $175+ million, with about $90-95+ million or so coming in the first three days, resulting in a three-day weekend around $80+ million. It's also important to remember that no matter how the film opens, Homecoming enjoyed a 2.85x multiplier after its $117 million debut, which outperforms the 2.74x average for films in the MCU and is the seventh best in the 22-film franchise. Should Far from Home meet or top Mojo's expectations it will be well on its way to strong domestic and worldwide runs.

Internationally, Far from Home kicked off its overseas run last weekend with openings in China, Japan and Hong Kong leading to nearly $111 million. This weekend expands to the rest of the world outside of Italy, where the film will open next week on July 10.

Look for Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 4 to finish in the runner-up position after two weekends atop the charts. This weekend we're looking for a decent hold, around -44% or so and a $32 million three-day, pushing the film's gross around $300 million as it enters its third week in release.

Universal's Yesterday managed to outperform last weekend just as we thought it might, delivering a strong $17 million opening to go along with an "A-" CinemaScore. This weekend we're looking for a -41% dip, a three-day around $10 million and a domestic cume nearing $35 million after ten days in release.

The two previous Annabelle features dipped -57.3% and -55.4% in their second weekends respectively. Given Annabelle Comes Home had an extended, five-day opening we're leaning toward that -57% figure with our expectation for the horror sequel's sophomore frame, looking for a three-day around $8.1 million and a domestic cume by the end of the weekend a bit shy of $50 million.

Rounding out the top five, Disney's Aladdin keeps on trucking after dipping just -23.6% last weekend and we're looking for another solid performance this weekend, anticipating a drop around -23% for a three-day totaling $7.8 million for a domestic cume that could push over $320 million by end of day Sunday.

We currently have A24's Midsommar landing just outside the top five. The film will debut on Wednesday, launching into 2,588 locations and expanding to 2,707 theaters on Friday. Industry expectations are a bit wide ranged, anticipating a five-day debut anywhere from $9-15 million and we're currently looking for a debut right in the middle of that range. Looking at writer/director Ari Aster's last release, Hereditary, which debuted with $13.5 million last June, en route to a $44 million domestic run, Midsommar is pacing a bit behind that film over the two weeks leading up to release when looking at IMDb page view data. It's also behind A24's The Witch and 2018's The First Purge, the latter of which also opened on a Wednesday over the July 4 holiday last year.

As for this weekend, we're expecting a five-day performance around $12 million, though that could easily bump up as soon as tomorrow once we have theater counts and word on how the film performs this evening with previews beginning at 7PM.

This weekend's three-day forecast is directly below. This post will be updated on Friday morning with Thursday night preview results followed by Friday estimates on Saturday morning, and a complete weekend recap on Sunday morning.

  • Spider-Man: Far from Home - $80.0 M
  • Toy Story 4 - $32.2 M
  • Yesterday - $9.5 M
  • Annabelle Comes Home - $8.1 M
  • Aladdin - $7.8 M
  • Midsommar - $7.0 M
  • The Secret Life of Pets 2 - $4.8 M
  • Men in Black International - $4.3 M
  • Avengers: Endgame - $4.1 M
  • Rocketman - $2.4 M


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