Tag: Man

The Boxoffice Podium

Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | January 31 – February 2, 2025

Week 5 | January 31 – February 2, 2025

1. Dog Man
Universal Pictures/Dreamworks Animation | NEW
Weekend Range: $25M – $35M
Showtime Market Share: 19%

Pros

A spin-off of Dav Pilkey’s phenomenally popular juvenile book series Captain Underpants, Dog Man is the movie to beat this weekend. Our numbers are conservative, with several members in our forecasting team thinking this title can seriously overperform. A surprise overperformance above $35M isn’t off the table, but we’re currently keeping pace with our original tracking in the $25 to $35M range. With no direct family competition, Dog Man will easily finish the weekend on top. Early reviews trickling in after the film premiered at France’s Festival de l’Alpe d’Huez seem to be leaning majority positive/fresh, though this is about as review-proof as family films get. Dreamworks’ first Captain Underpants movie in 2017 earned an 87% Certified Fresh. As an added bonus, the studio is attaching a short set within the world of The Bad Guys as a prelude/ad for The Bad Guys 2 which drops in August.

Cons

Anything under a $20M opening on this one will be a disappointment, although in typical recent Dreamworks style they have outsourced the animation on Dog Man to partner studios to keep costs down. Plushes, popcorn buckets, and soda toppers are just some of the merch theater chains like Regal have in store with the anticipated family onslaught, but is Dog Man too much of an ancillary property? Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie took in less than $100M stateside ($73.9M) when it opened in June 2017, so to expect Dog Man to be the Minions to Captain Underpants‘ Despicable Me might be optimistic.

2. Companion
Warner Bros. Pictures | NEW
Weekend Range: $8M – $12M
Showtime Market Share: 12%

Pros

The AI-run-amok genre continues to expand with Companion, a film in which a companion sex robot gains sentience. Zach Cregger of the sleeper hit Barbarian flexes his producer muscles on this one, while star Sophie Thatcher continues to evolve into the scream queen du jour (The Boogeyman, Maxxxine, Heretic). Reviews for this title are pristine at a current 94% on RT, which gives it a lot of momentum with the horror crowd.

Cons

Companion could conceivably overperform as high as $15M, but we’re being conservative in our forecast to keep pace with recent horror performances. If word of mouth delivers, this one can leg out in the coming weeks, but Presence had 90% RT going into last weekend and failed to ignite. A good comp would be 2015’s experimental pleasure robot thriller Ex Machina, although that one built up slow with two weeks of limited platforming before going wide to ultimately do $25.4M domestic. Based on trailers Companion appears to have more levity and may be more of a crowd pleaser.

TOSS UP

3. Mufasa: The Lion King
Walt Disney Pictures | Week 7
Weekend Range: $4M – $6M
Showtime Market Share: 8%

Pros

Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King continues to leg it out into the bleak January months, collecting $8.59M to take the #2 spot this past weekend. That was only a 29% drop from Frame 5, with the current domestic total at $220.96M and $627.99M globally. We think Mufasa can stay in the top three, but it’s really down to how much business it can keep with new competition from Dog Man.

Cons

The family box office is going to the dogs. Dreamworks’ Dog Man is looking to not only usurp the family audience this frame but likely well into spring when Disney’s Snow White enters the woods. The lions have had their day and will head onto streaming shortly. If Dog Man overperforms this weekend, we think Flight Risk can sneak up to take third place.

3. Flight Risk
Lionsgate | Week 2
Weekend Range: $4M – $6M
Showtime Market Share: 9%

Pros

Lionsgate’s B-movie programmer Flight Risk took the top spot last week with $11.58M, down from the initial $12M estimates. Hopefully it can use some of that #1 movie in America momentum to earn solid in Frame 2. Right now it’s a coin toss as to whether this or Mufasa will take third place.

Cons

It’s more than fair to say that both director Mel Gibson and star Mark Wahlberg have seen better days in their careers. A “C” CinemaScore plus 25% Rotten Tomatoes critical means the word is out and it is not complimentary.