It’s been almost a historically bad start to the year so far at the domestic box office. And while one can often forgive January and February for being lackluster, March completely bottomed out making just $397.6 million. Not counting the COVID years of 2020 and 2021, that’s the lowest grossing March since 1995. And that’s not adjusted for ticket price inflation. For comparison, even the last two years were in the $600-700 million range. Pre-COVID, most Marches were in the $800-900 million range, with 2017, led by “Beauty and the Beast,” earning $1.171 billion. So yeah, not cracking $400 million on the month is really bad. And that sparks an interesting discussion regarding what went wrong and how can things manage to recover. Is it doom and gloom? Are theaters finally over and movies done? Is streaming finally going to take over as the main source of movie watching? Or is it simply a case of audiences not liking what the studios put out? Meaning people are willing to come out and pay for a ticket, they’re just waiting for the right movie.
While this could’ve been a more nuanced discussion had I typed and released this post a week ago, the conversation has immediately shifted with the massive breakout that was “A Minecraft Movie” in the first weekend. And now we get the opportunity to analyze that in the context of everything. The short answer seems to be that the latter option is correct. While times are certainly changing and it seems unlikely that we’ll ever get back to where we were pre-COVID, people are still willing to come out to theaters. They’re just waiting for the right movie. And right now, “Minecraft” is that movie. But is there anything else? Normally April is the calm before the storm, given that the summer movie season begins in May and studios usually wait until then to release their biggest movies. But April does have a decent bit of potential and certainly plenty in terms of quantity, so that gives us plenty to talk about here as we explore “Minecraft” and what’s going up against it in the ensuing weeks.
As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.
April 4 – 6
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| Warner Bros.' "A Minecraft Movie" |
Yes, if you didn’t get the news, this month started out with an absolutely bang as A Minecraft Movie opened to a staggering $162.8 million. I don’t need to tell you what this is. I might be the least qualified person to do so, in fact, as one who’s not played a single minute of the video game. I can make mention that the first full version of the game was released back in 2011 and a quick Google search claims that there are currently over 200 million monthly active players. And the nature of the game is such that it has a much larger shelf life than your average video game. Is it the type of movie that translates well into a movie? Well, that can be debatable. Clearly the final product wound up working well for its target audience, both in terms of attracting people to come see it and resulting in them enjoying it. It’s also a movie that’s been in development not longer after the game itself was released. The game’s creator announced as early as 2014 that a movie adaptation from Warner Bros. was in the works. In the decade since, there’s been a very long list of directors and actors that have been attached to the movie before landing on Jared Hess in 2022, and eventually landing Jack Black and Jason Momoa as main leads of the movie. Prognostications for this movie were all over the place leading up to its release. $50-80 million seemed like the common range, with the later predictions leaning towards $80-100 million as we got closer to the weekend. I personally would’ve looked at the “Sonic” franchise, with the first and third opening around $60 million, while “Sonic 2” opened to $72.1 million. We also had “Detective Pikachu” open to $54.4 million and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” open to $80 million.
As it turns out, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” was the correct comparison, as two years ago on this first weekend of April, it opened to $146.4 million, which broke the record for the highest opening for a video game movie, a record that is now held by “A Minecraft Movie,” although it should be noted that “Mario” opened on a Wednesday and had a 5-day opening of $204.6 million, which thus deflated its official 3-day total. The record books won’t make note of that, but it certainly will be worth following to see if “Minecraft” can top the $574.9 million domestic total of “Mario” or its $1.359 billion worldwide total. “Minecraft” had an official worldwide start of $313 million, so that’s where the race begins. And in terms of direct competition for family audiences, there’s not a single major competitor until “Lilo & Stitch” at the end of May, so “Minecraft” has a very long runway. What does this mean in terms of the state of cinema? Well, it certainly seems to prove the point that people still are willing to head out to the theaters. They’re just simply waiting for the right movie to see. And right now that’s “Minecraft.” In fact, with the likes of “Mario,” “Sonic,” and “Minecraft” all doing well, we do seem to be in a golden age for video game movie adaptations, with the common denominator being video game movies targeted at a family audience. That bodes well for the likes of “The Legend of Zelda,” currently scheduled for 2027, as well as the imminent sequels that these movies mentioned will get. Hollywood still hasn’t quite cracked the code for more adult-targeted video game movies, but they’ll continue to try. Although maybe more lessons should be learned from the TV realm, as “The Last of Us” and “Fallout” have proven that perhaps a series is a better format for a video game adaptation instead of trying to stuff a giant game into a two hour movie.
“Minecraft” wasn’t the only thing to hit theaters this weekend. But speaking of TV shows, the second best new release came with The Chosen: Last Supper – Part 2. As a reminder, this is Season 5 of “The Chosen,” which is being released theatrically by Fathom Events in three parts, just like with Season 4 last year. Part 1 of Season 5, which was Episodes 1 and 2, actually had the biggest weekend yet for any theatrical event for “The Chosen,” as it opened to $11.8 million. For whatever reason, a certain percentage of people did not return for Part 2, which is Episodes 3, 4, and 5, but it still had a solid opening of $6.9 million. Currently Part 1, at the end of its second weekend, has totaled $17.9 million, which means that in total Season 5 is up in the realm of $25 million total, with Part 3 still to come in the second weekend of April, while all three parts will remain in theaters concurrently. So this has been a very productive theatrical run for Season 5, which is focusing on the final week of the life of Jesus Christ, up until the final day, which will be portrayed in Season 6.
In moderate wide release, NEON released Hell of a Summer, a slasher flick written and directed by “Stranger Things” star Finn Wolfhard and co-directed by Billy Bryk. Finn and Billy also co-star in the movie itself, which is about a group of counselors of a summer camp being terrorized by a masked killer, so a movie clearly inspired by the “Friday the 13th” franchise. The movie was actually initially released at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023, so it’s taken nearly two years for it to finally be available to mainstream audiences. It opened in 8th place with $1.75 million from 1,255 theaters. Reviews have been mixed to negative, although some have enjoyed it as an entertainingly silly throwback that might amuse any horror fans for 90 minutes.
Coming in right behind “Hell of Summer” was the nationwide expansion of The Friend. This is a movie that opened the prior weekend in just two theaters, earning $67,629, which made for a solid per theater average of $33,815. In its second weekend in expanded to 1,237 theaters and earned $1.65 million, a much smaller per theater average, which means it didn’t quite connect with general audiences in the same way that it connected with people during its platform release. Nevertheless, the movie stars Bill Murray and Naomi Watts, as well as Bing the dog playing the Great Dane Apollo. The movie has Watts playing a creative writing teacher whose life is thrown into disarray when her friend and mentor commits suicide and she’s left to take care of his dog. This is movie that also opened in the festival rounds, starting in Telluride before hitting Toronto and New York, although doing so last year as opposed to 2023. It’s reaction so far has been mixed to positive, although it landing with Bleecker Street and getting released in April instead of getting an awards run suggests its not good enough to be an awards player, but it’s there as an option for any adult audience who wants to see a drama about a girl and a dog.
April 11 – 13
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| A24's "Warfare" |
In the ensuing weeks with “Minecraft,” we will now play this game of how well can it hold in comparison to “Mario” and is there anything in the market that can come remotely close to toppling it. “Thunderbolts*” will take the top spot in the first weekend of May, but is there any movie that can possibly beat it before then? Or is it going to completely sweep April?
With the second weekend, “Mario” fell 37 percent for a weekend total of $92.3 million. If “Minecraft” fell that same exact percentage in its second weekend, that would lead to a second weekend total of $102.5 million. Can it really manage to pull off a $100 million second weekend? There’s not a whole lot of movies that have been able to pull that off. Seven to be exact, three of them being Avengers movies (“Age of Ultron” being the odd man out), “Black Panther,” “Jurassic World,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” and last year’s “Inside Out 2.” In regards to the latter, it opened to $154.2 million, then fell 34 percent in weekend 2, to finish with $101.2 million. Fellow Warner Bros. movie “Barbie” opened with a nearly identical $162.02 million (vs. the $162.75 million for “Minecraft”). “Barbie” fell 43 percent in Weekend 2 for a $93.01 million total. Needless to say, somewhere in the 35-45 percent range seems like an appropriate drop for “Minecraft,” putting it in the range of $89.5-105.8 million.
And no, there’s nothing that will open remotely close to that range, but there are four new releases, as well as Part 3 of “The Chosen” Season 5, that will all be jockeying for position in the top five. I could see a variety of potential outcomes, but it seems like the safest bet to earn the silver medal is A24’s Warfare, which is another military related from director Alex Garland, who helmed last year’s “Civil War,” which opened to $25.5 million. “Warfare” is a movie about a team of Navy SEALs during the Iraq War towards the end of 2006, who are on a mission during the final stages of the Battle of Ramadi. The movie is co-directed by Ray Mendoza, who was Garland’s military supervisor on “Civil War,” and is based on Mendoza’s own personal experiences during the Iraq War. In fact, lead actor D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai is cast to play Mendoza himself in the movie, meaning Garland might be more of a supporting role as a director, while it’s Mendoza telling his own story. The movie is currently being praised for its high level of authenticity to what it was like to be in war, which seems to be the main goal. Box Office Pro has this pegged to open in the $12-18 million range, but I’m thinking that this feels like it could open closer to “Civil War” and positive early reviews indicate that this could generate positive word of mouth that’ll help it have a good run. Every once in a while a positively reviewed war movie breaks out in a surprising way, like “Lone Survivor” opening to $37.8 million in January 2014 or Clint Eastwood’s “Lone Survivor” exploding onto the scene a year later with an opening of $89.3 million. I won’t predict “Warfare” to come remotely close to that, but that just shows the potential of this genre when it hits. Will Poulter and Joseph Quinn are among the cast of supporting actors in the film.
It feels like even more of a toss-up to figure out what’s next, but going off of early reviews, I will take a shot on bringing up the thriller Drop next, which is described by the Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes as a “Hitchcockian thriller that cleverly utilizes modern technology for its twists and turns.” It seems a bit funny to already have a Critics Consensus when there’s only been 39 reviews counted, but those early reviews have so far been very positive as it stands at a 90 percent. This comes via Christopher Landon, director of “Happy Death Day” and “Freaky,” as well as being a writer and producer for “Heart Eyes” from earlier this year. The basic premise is that a girl goes on a date with a man, and suddenly starts getting mysterious messages telling her to kill her date or the sender of the messages is going to hurt her son. And that’s all I personally want to know about the premise, so I won’t even attempt to dive further. Box Office Pro has this pegged in the $10-15 million range, which doesn’t really help in trying to figure out an order. On the positive end, “Happy Death Day” opened to $26 million, but that was in the middle of Halloween season in October 2017. The sequel opened to a much smaller $9.5 million, while “Heart Eyes” earlier this year opened to $8.3 million and “Freaky” to just $3.6 million, although the latter feels like more of an anomaly given its November 2020 release during COVID. But that still provides a wide range here, which will likely depend on audience awareness combined with word of mouth.
Next up is the action/spy thriller The Amateur, which stars Rami Malek as a CIA cryptographer who loses his wife in a terrorist attack and embarks on a solo vigilante mission to hunt down her killers, after realizing his bosses aren’t going to do anything, then blackmailing them to train him as a field operative. The movie is based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Robert Littell, and is directed by James Hawes, who directed a random assortment of TV episodes as well as the feature length film “One Life,” starring Anthony Hopkins, from last year. In seeing the trailers over the past few months, this has always felt like a movie that could either be a breakout hit or be completely ignored, and I’m not even sure which one it’ll be, especially on a crowded weekend with a lot of different options. Although it does give me vibes of “Novocaine” or “Black Bag” from this past month, the latter being a fellow spy thriller, with the former being a dude trying to hunt down people who did things to his love interest. The two movies opened on the same weekend, which saw “Novocaine” win out with $8.8 million, with “Black Bag” not too far behind with $7.6 million. Box Office Pro also isn’t super helpful as they also have this pegged in the $10-15 million range, which I guess they’re just going to put everything there.
The last wide movie release is of the animated variety and that is Angel Studios’ The King of Kings, which is the second movie this year to tell the story of Jesus. And I’m not counting “The Chosen” in that. Last month, Pinnacle Peak released the movie “The Last Supper,” which was a co-production by Pure Flix and Grand Canyon University and focused exactly on what it says in the title, with emphasis being on Peter and Judas, and their contrasting feelings during that final week. “The King of Kings” does set itself apart by being animated and thus more family oriented. But it’s also framed by being loosely based on Charles Dickens’ “The Life of Our Lord” and has Dickens telling the story of Jesus to his son Walter. In that story, if you had Oscar Isaac voicing Jesus on your 2025 Bingo Card, congratulations! You win! The movie also features voices of Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Mark Hamill, Pierce Brosnan, Roman Griffin Davis, Forest Whitaker, Ben Kingsley, Dee Bradley Backer, James Arnold Taylor, and Jim Cummings. That’s quite the voice cast for a Christian movie about Jesus. Now a lot of Angel Studios movies have been consistently opening in the $3-5 million. Given the subject matter and the Easter Season, this does feel like one that could jump a bit higher. Deadline just yesterday reported that the presales for “The King of Kings” are outselling “Sound of Freedom” at their same point in release. And “Sound of Freedom” wound up opening to $19.7 million. I’m not sure that necessarily translates into a $20 million opening for “The King of Kings,” but it just shows that it’s yet another movie from this weekend with breakout potential.
And, of course, we also have The Chosen: Last Supper – Part 3. I have talked about “The Chosen” plenty already, but as a reminder, this is Season 5 of “The Chosen.” Part 3 is the final three episodes of the season. Part 1 opened to $11.8 million, while Part 2 opened to $6.9 million. It would be a little weird if Part 3 opened higher than Part 2, because that would assume some people skipped the middle three episodes and went straight to the finale. But I suppose its possible that some will catch up on Part 2 during the week before seeing Part 3. Or maybe catch them back to back. If it follows the trends of Season 4, though, Part 1 opened the biggest, Part 2 opened to about half as much, while Part 3 opened slightly below Part 2. So I expect a similar pattern here, with Part 3 opening somewhere in the $6 million range. Season 5 will debut on streaming at some point later in the year, although I’m not sure the specific date has been announced just yet. It took a bit for Season 4 to finally get to streaming as their appeared to be a bit of a battle as to which service got the rights.
April 18 – 20
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| Warner Bros.' "Sinners" |
After what looks like a busy second weekend, the third weekend looks to be a bit quieter. There’s just one major release, but also a handful of smaller ones. Before that, though, continuing our “Minecraft” vs. “Mario” game, “Mario” in its third weekend fell 35 percent and earned a total of $59.9 million. If “Minecraft” followed “Mario” exactly in Weekend 2, and again in Weekend 3, that would equate to a devil’s number of $66.6 million on Easter weekend. If it instead fell on the higher end of the predicted range (45 percent drop), and then again in Weekend 3, that would mean a total of $49.2 million. So we’re likely looking at somewhere in the range of $50-65 million.
And no, nothing on the schedule that looks to come particularly close to that. So it seems safe to say that “Minecraft” gets a three-peat at the box office, at the very least. However the one big opening of this weekend a fellow Warner Bros. release with Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which re-teams Coogler with yet again with Michael B. Jordan, who starred in “Fruitvale Station,” “Creed” and “Black Panther,” all of which were directed by Coogler. This time around Coogler heads into the horror realm with Michael B. Jordan playing a duel role as two brothers who return to their home town, which is set in the 1930s, only to find what the trailers infer is a vampire problem. Some have even said it looks like the type of movie that could’ve happened if Michael B. Jordan had been cast in the lead of Marvel’s “Blade,” which seems at this point that it might not actually happen. Back to “Sinners” Box Office Pro currently has it in the $35-45 million range. They had it even higher in their initial Long Range Forecast, with $40-50 million. To me that seems a bit generous, but would put in the range of “Alien: Romulus” ($42.0 million) or “A Quiet Place: Day One” ($52.2 million). However, those were both franchise films. Glancing through horror openings of last year, there are a lot that hit the $8-12 million range. Given the name recognition of Coogler and Jordan, I would believe that this could be higher. But I personally see openings like “Nosferatu” ($21.7 million), “Longlegs” ($22.4 million), and “Smile 2” ($23.0 million). But who knows. We very well could have a breakout hit on the level of a Jordan Peele horror movie. Both “Get Out” and “Nope” would fit the range of Box Office Pro’s $35-45 million.
Looking at the rest of the calendar for this weekend, there are three additional releases that the-numbers claims are opening in wide release, although in my personal investigation it doesn’t seem like any of them are opening too terribly wide. The most likely for moderate success is The Wedding Banquet, which is a movie out of Sundance this year that’s about a gay man who makes a deal with his lesbian friend: a green-card marriage for him in exchange for in vitro fertilization for her. Things don’t quite go as planned and start spiraling a bit out of control. That’s a premise that’s likely to grab the attention of some people and has a 97 percent score out of Sundance, with 30 reviews counted. It comes from Bleecker Street, who expanded “The Friend” earlier this month into 1,237 theaters, earning $1.65 milion.
Smaller movie No. 2 is the animated movie Sneaks, from Briarcliff Entertainment. It does have a solid voice cast, with Anthony Mackie, Keith David, Laurence Fishburne, and Martin Lawrence. The movie is about a sneaker who gets lost in New York City. IMDb gets rather punny when they describe this sneaker as having to dig deep into his “sole” to rescue his sister and return to his rightful owner. The highest grossing release from Briarcliff Entertainment is the 2022 movie “Blacklight,” which opened to $3.5 million. This year they released “My Dead Friend Zoe” in 780 theaters, earning $740,088 in its opening weekend, as well as “Magazine Dreams” in 815 theaters, which opened to $701,365. So I’m guessing those two are closer to what “Sneaks” will perform like.
And finally GKIDS will be releasing COLORFUL STAGE! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing into domestic theaters, following its Japanese release in January. On a quick glance, this may look like another TV series adaptation, or collection of episodes, like GKIDS has helped distribute quite a bit lately, but this is in fact an adaptation of a mobile game called “Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!,” which itself is a spin-off of the video game series “Hatsune Miku: Project Diva,” which is a series with six main titles and four spin-off titles. Anyways, in coming back from that rabbit hole, this movie adaptation is described as a sci-fi musical drama with a bit of a layered premise that fans of these games might appreciate. The most recent GKIDS release here domestically was “Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning-,” which opened in 784 theaters and made $882.471. Some of these GKIDS anime movies surprise, but those are usually from franchises that are more well known and popular. I suppose this is the wrong month to underestimate a video game adaptation, but initially this doesn’t seem like the type of anime that will connect in the same way domestically.
April 25 – 27
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| Amazon MGM's "The Accountant 2" |
In our final game of “Minecraft” vs. “Mario,” if “Minecraft” again follows the same trajectory of “Mario,” in its fourth weekend “Mario” dropped just 32 percent for a total of $40.8 million. That same percentage drop would leave “Minecraft” with $45.3 million. On the lower end of things, if it continued a slightly steeper drop of 45 percent again in weekend 4, that would lead it to a fourth weekend total of $27.1 million. That means a likely weekend range of $30-45 million. The other comparison that I mentioned earlier was “Barbie,” which again had a nearly identical opening to “Minecraft.” In Weekend 4, “Barbie” made a total of $33.8 million. I’m not going to try to predict exactly where “Minecraft” will land on the spectrum, but there’s your range for the final weekend of April.
And that’s where things get interesting for the first time as our big new release is The Accountant 2, which is another movie that’s been getting solid early buzz. Box Office Pro has the movie projected at the moment in the $30-40 million range, right where I’m putting the range for “Minecraft.” So if “The Accountant 2” does indeed hit this range, this could be the first real challenge for “Minecraft.” Now the original movie “The Accountant” was a 2016 action movie starring Ben Afflect as an autistic public accountant who works in the realm of criminal and terrorist organizations, which leads into it being an action film when two hitmen get sent to kill him. The movie opened decently to $24.7 million, that being in October 2016. It finished with $86.3 million domestically and $152.9 million worldwide, off a production budget of $40 million. The movie got mixed reviews from critics, currently holding a 53 percent score, but has had a decent post-theatrical life as it’s been very well regarded in certain circles, which has finally led it to getting a sequel… nine years later. “The Accountant 2” has director Gavin O’Connor returning for the sequel, as well as much of the original cast, including Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, and J.K. Simmons, so this will be a real test to see how popular “The Accountant” has actually become in the last nine years. I could see it falling a little short, opening in the $15-20 million, as belated sequels don’t always work out. This could be a case of a sequel coming out about six years too late. Or if it really has built up a huge audience, perhaps it does earn $30-40 million and win the weekend.
Speaking of video game adaptations coming out this month, “Minecraft” isn’t the only one coming out as this weekend sees the much clamored for movie adaptation of Until Dawn, which is a choose your own adventure horror game that was released for the Playstation 4 in 2015. It’s about a group of friends who go to a cabin in the woods and the choices you make in the game determine what the final outcome ends up being, meaning that there are a lot of potential timelines that can play out, with a variety of different endings. Can you keep everyone alive or are your choices going to kill everyone off? Given the basic cabin in the woods premise, this is a game that definitely lends itself to a horror movie, although you obviously lose the interaction that you have in the game. With horror director David F. Sandberg attached to the movie (“Lights Out,” “Annabelle: Creation”), on paper this seemed like it could work well. Then the trailer came out and fans of the game became extremely worried that the only thing the movie has in common with the game is… the title of the movie, which has led to a lot of confusion as to certain directions the movie seems to be going. And, oddly enough, the video game is the one that has a more recognizable voice cast, as Rami Malek is one of the main voices in the game, as is Hayden Penettiere. Yet the movie adaptation has a mostly unrecognizable cast of actors. Again, not the month to be doubting video game movie adaptations, but the area that this genre has struggled the most is in adaptations targeted at adults, which is where “Until Dawn” falls. A late April release of a horror adaptation that fans are upset with seems like a recipe for disaster. Something that might open in the single digit millions, but $8-12 million is the range that Box Office Pro has for it.
The final movie of the weekend and the month is the family adventure film The Legend of Ochi, which is a movie that premiered at Sundance this year to moderately positive reaction. This was purchased by A24 and was initially scheduled to come out in February, but was delayed to April after director Isaiah Saxon lost his home in the January wildfires in California. The movie follows a secluded village who teach their children to avoid and fear the reclusive creatures known as the ochi. One young girl, though, finds a baby ochi and develops a bond with it and sets out on a journey to return it to its family. And thus we have a modern family adventure film in the realm of “E.T.,” that some of claimed feels a little too familiar and perhaps a bit generic, but family audiences who do give it a chance have the potential to enjoy it as a fun, heartwarming adventure. Awareness of the movie doesn’t seem to be too incredibly high at the moment, but perhaps it’s the type of movie that gets found later in the streaming realm and is enjoyed that way.
