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Long Range Forecast — January 10, 2024

Den of Thieves: Pantera | Lionsgate

Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $10M – $15M

With the holiday season behind us for another year, cinemas are set to settle into a typical January lull, with late 2024 holdovers competing against an eclectic mix of smaller new releases. Of the latter, Lionsgate has a programmer with solid potential in Den of Thieves: Pantera, in which a gang of LAPD cops travel to Europe to put a stop to a diamond heist. This sequel to Den of Thieves, which has grown a cult audience in streaming since its release, can potentially grab an audience in an otherwise quiet period in the market.

An opening on the high end of our $10M – $15M forecasting range would put Den of Thieves: Pantera roughly in line with the first Den of Thieves, which opened to $15.2M in mid-January 2018 on its way to an eventual $44.9M domestic haul. On the low side, a debut closer to $10M would be reminiscent of another Gerard Butler-starring January action release: 2023’s Plane ($10.2M domestic opening, $32.1M domestic total), which, like Pantera was released by Lionsgate.

The studio is coming off a down year in which only two of their releases—The Strangers: Chapter One ($11.8M) and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever ($10.7M)—opened over $10M. The lack of a new action-oriented, male-skewing movie since November’s Gladiator II ($55M domestic opening), plus the following the first Den of Thieves has gained on streaming, could help Pantera find its audience. The trick will be getting that audience sufficiently motivated to see the film in theaters rather than waiting to watch it at home.

In the realm of “Lionsgate cult favorite actioner that was able to turn popularity into sequel ticket sales,” the best-case scenario would be a performance a la February 2017’s John Wick: Chapter 2 ($30.4M domestic opening,$92M domestic total). It’s not likely: Though Den of Thieves slightly edged out John Wick in terms of debut gross ($15.2M for Den of Thieves, $14.4M for John Wick) and domestic total ($44.9M for Den of Thieves, $43M for John Wick), the John Wick crew struck. At the same time, the iron was hot, releasing a sequel three years after the original compared to Den of Thieves‘ six years.

Still, Pantera‘s connection to the first film should help it avoid the sub-$20M status of recent Lionsgate actioners like 2024’s The Killer’s Game ($2.6M domestic opening, $5.4M domestic total), 2023’s Silent Night ($3M opening, $8M domestic total), 2022’s Moonfall ($9.8M domestic opening, $19M domestic total), or 2021’s The Protégé ($2.9M domestic opening, $7.4M domestic total). Looking outside of Lionsgate, January action releases have had varied levels of success in the last five years, ranging from Amazon MGM’s The Beekeeper (1/12/14, $16.5M domestic opening, $66.2M domestic total) to Open Road Films’ The Marksman (1/15/21, $3.1M domestic total, $15.5M domestic total) or Universal’s The 355 (1/7/22, $4.6M domestic opening, $14.5M domestic total).

Tracking Updates [as of Dec 20]