Box Office Predictions: Who wins in the battle of Paw vs Saw?

With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem drifting out of the top ten this week after earning a respectable $116.5 million at the domestic box office, it is time for a new family film to hit the market and that film is Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie. I will be honest, I don’t know much about Paw Patrol, is it a series for toddlers or do the stories skew a bit older? What I do know is that in August 2021 Paw Patrol: The Movie was released to a $13.1 million opening on its way to a $40.1 million domestic finish ($144.3 million worldwide). That number shows me that there is an audience for this franchise, and that was just a movie, it wasn’t mighty! That movie faced off against the second week of the hit Ryan Reynolds film Free Guy which won the weekend while the other new releases of the week: The Protege, The Night House and Reminiscence all tanked. The way animated films have been hitting this year when given a release that distances themselves from other animated films, I can see this one hitting a bit stronger than the previous entry and landing around the $20 million mark.

According to tracking, this will be a weekend where the cute and cuddly dogs of Paw Patrol face off against the sinister not serial killer John Kramer as Saw X is currently tracking for a $15-$20 million launch with some sources thinking this tenth film in the franchise can hit even higher. The last Saw adjacent film was the Chris Rock led Spiral: From The Book of Saw which didn’t exactly set the box office on fire with just an $8.7 million bow and a horrible $23.2 million domestic total ($40.6 million worldwide) but that movie was one that had some covid related delays and kind of just got lost in the shuffle. Despite trying to revive the franchise in 2017 with Jigsaw which saw a $16.6 million opening and a $38 million domestic total ($102.9 million worldwide), the last Saw film to feel like it was truly part of the franchise was 2010’s Saw 3D aka Saw: the Final Chapter which saw a $22.5 million opening on its way to a $45.7 million domestic take ($136.1 million worldwide).

The interesting thing is that as of this writing, Saw X is receiving the best reviews of the entire franchise with many calling it a return to form for the series. Our own Tyler Nichols praised the film in his 7//10 review for focusing more on the characters than the exploitation the later entires in the series seemed to suffer from. As a massive fan of the series, I can not wait to see this latest entry (already have my ticket booked for tonight’s showing) but am still approaching it with a bit of hesitation. As much as I like prequel stories, the events of Saw X take place between the the first and second Saw films, sometimes they can feel anti-climactic as we already know where the story is going. Especially for a franchise like Saw that currently has a few loose ends that need to be resolved which I won’t spoil for you here, I’ll just say: Dr. Lawrence Gordon, Logan Nelson and Detective William Schenk!

I’m not sure how many new fans the series will attract with this latest film, but with Tobin Bell back as the lead star with Shawnee Smith also back giving this new installment a feeling that brings it back to the first few films, I think enough genre fans will turn up and get this to finish just shy of the $20 million mark.

The next new release is one that our own Chris Bumbray called a new sci-fi classic in his 8/10 review. The Creator comes from Gareth Edwards who made a name for himself with the 2010 film Monsters before taking on iconic franchises with 2014’s Godzilla and 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. He is back with this timely tale of a future overrun by Artificial Intelligence and its war vs the humans. I have noticed that generally Chris Bumbray and I have similar tastes in films, however The Creator appears to be one where we differ. I saw this last night in a fairly vacant IMAX screening and although I will admit that the film is visually stunning and well made, it just never grabbed my attention. Try as I might, I just could not get into this movie at all. I will be curious to see how general audiences respond to this one. As I said, my screening, which was one of those “early access” screenings, was nearly empty and I think that will be how this movie plays out this weekend with mostly empty theaters. Genre fans may propel this one to a $15 million opening but I can’t see it hitting much higher than that. 

So now let’s talk about a movie I did genuinely enjoy: Dumb Money sees its full wide release this weekend after a two week slow roll out that saw some decent numbers. This is not the type of movie that will pull in $100 million at the box office. With the exception of the Oscar winning The Big Short ($70.2 million domestic, $133.4 million worldwide) I don’t think people are running out to theaters to see movies about the stock market! I will admit I am a sucker for these films that delve into the inner workings of recent events such as Big Short as well as films like Margin Call and the HBO film Too Big To Fail. I think Dumb Money will probably top out around $6 million this weekend as it doesn’t scream “big screen experience” although any movie that looks good deserves that big screen experience in my opinion.

Rounding out the top five should be The Nun II as it continues its steady journey at the box office where it has amassed over $70 million domestic so far as it remained atop the charts for the past three weeks. Despite all the options for audiences this weekend, I can see this one remaining steady with a $5 million weekend. 

Do any of the new releases entice you enough to head to theaters this weekend? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check back on Saturday when we have a brief update on where the weekend box office is heading.

TOP FIVE PREDICTIONS

1. Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie- $20 Million
2. Saw X– $19 million
3. The Creator– $15 Million
4. Dumb Money– $6 Million
5. The Nun II– $5 Million