Box Office Predictions: The Bad Guys should easily lead slow weekend ahead of Doctor Strange 2

It’s going to be a relatively slow weekend at the box office as The Bad Guys should lead a weekend of holdovers trying to maintain traction ahead of the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is expected to be huge. The only real wide release this weekend is Memory, starring Liam Neeson, but it’s bound to join his recent list of forgettable films that essentially see him playing the same character.

The Bad Guys overperformed last weekend and should still be a top choice for families this weekend. I suspect moviegoers that weren’t willing to give the film a chance last week might just do so in its second weekend due to its bigger-than-expected opening making headlines. The interesting thing is that The Northman came out ahead of The Bad Guys on Monday ($1.09 million versus $1.05 million) but that is to be expected. The target audience for The Bad Guys is back at school during the week and adults are sampling The Northman a bit more. The Bad Guys should rebound a bit over the weekend with a gross of $14 million.

Depending on if Fantastic Beasts craters even further this weekend, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is likely to maintain second place. The big news for the Sonic sequel is that it will top the $148 million+ domestic gross of the original film heading into the weekend and that will make it the highest-grossing video game adaptation at the domestic box office. What we found last weekend was that the family audience didn’t really devour each other. There was room for The Bad Buys, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, and, to a lesser extent, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. I’m calling about $7.5 million for the weekend.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore will continue its downward trajectory in third place, although I doubt its third-weekend drop will be as severe as its second. It could be a close race with Sonic The Hedgehog 2 but I think it’s going to come up a tad short at $7 million for the weekend.

The Northman should maintain fourth place but I suspect, while critically lauded and engaging a vocal fanbase, the film just hasn’t engaged casual moviegoers to prevent a drop that won’t be significant. The Northman is definitely going to find a new life on PVOD and streaming down the line and I have to give Focus Features credit for giving director Robert Eggers a reported budget of $70-90 million for the project. More studios should take chances on groundbreaking filmmakers like this, even if the results don’t always get the box office on fire. I’m predicting about $6 million for The Northman in weekend two.

Everything Everywhere All At Once could find itself back in the top five as it has seen some solid holds and I think it’s going to come out ahead of Liam Neeson’s Memory and the second weekend of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. A24 has done a stellar job with the platform release as they have made the movie a bit of a word of mouth hit based on slowly rolling the film out. I’m going to call about $4.5 million for the weekend.

What are YOUR predictions for this weekend’s box office results?

TOP FIVE PREDICTIONS:

1. The Bad Guys – $14 million
2. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 – $7.5 million
3. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore – $7 million
4. The Northman – $6 million
5. Everything Everywhere All at Once – $4.5 million