by Conan Simmons – July 5, 2021 – 7:48 pm
The 4th of July holiday kept people outside and theaters naturally felt a bit of a drop off in attendance. In years past the norm for Independence Day weekend would be a major studio release of some big over-the-top action film that rakes in lots of dough. This year that action film came a week early as ‘F9: The Fast Saga’ took the top spot at the box office. The latest Fast and Furious movie maintained its place over the holiday weekend as two new films debuted.
Animated family film ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ and horror franchise installment ‘The Forever Purge’ performed decent at the box office.
‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ was a day-and-date release on streaming service Peacock but only with a paid subscription to the streamer. Given that Peacock has aggressively advertised the fact you can stream the service for free it is easy to forget they have a subscription plan. Ads for the movie also downplayed the fact it would be on the streaming service same day. It’s probable this was the cause for ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ being able to perform decently in theaters, much like how Disney+ charges extra for day-and-date releases thereby discouraging audiences to stream and making them more likely to just go out to the movies. Though is could be just another indicator of how beloved animated films have become recently as both ‘The Croods: A New Age’ and ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ stayed in theaters a long time while being available to stream.
‘The Forever Purge’ did fair enough especially when consideration is given that this is the fifth movie in a low budget horror franchise, a point where most other horror sequels go straight to video, or now, straight to streaming making it all the more interesting that ‘The Forever Purge’ is not a day-and-date release as Universal chose to make it available exclusively in theaters much like they did with ‘F9: The Fast Saga’. Universal holds the top three spots in the Weekend Box Office Top 5 with only ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ available on streaming.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (July 2-4, 2021 Independence Day 4th of July)
- ‘F9: The Fast Saga’ – $22.9 million – action (down $47.1 million, 67% drop)
- ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ – $16 million – animated (debut)
- ‘The Forever Purge’ – $12.5 million – horror (debut)
- ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’ – $4.1 million – horror (down $2.1 million, 34% drop)
- ‘The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard’ – $3 million – comedy (down $1.9 million, 39% drop)
Total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $58.5 million. A decline of $31.2 million for a 35% drop from last weekends total of $89.7 million.
Next weekend will see the release of the first Marvel movie since 2019’s ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ as Scarlett Johansson returns as ‘Black Widow’. Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz and David Harbour join Johansson on the spy thriller set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
For the first time a Marvel movie from the long running, phenomenally successful, interconnected franchise will be released day-and-date streaming on Disney+ for an additional $30 fee on top of the subscription charge. ‘Black Widow’ is one of four Marvel movies set to release this year. ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ is set for September 3 for a Labor Day weekend release, and ‘The Eternals’ is set for November 5. ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ is currently set for December 17 and like ‘Shang-Chi’ and ‘Eternals’ will be a theaters exclusive release.
How the streaming day-and-date will affect the box office grosses of ‘Black Widow’ will be closely monitored next weekend. Next weekend is expected to be the first $100 million weekend for theaters since the pandemic upended everything. For that to happen ‘Black Widow’ will need to make at least $67 million, which would be perfectly in line with the lowest estimates box office analysts have for the superhero picture to earn, the high end being $80 million plus.
‘Black Widow’, being a Marvel movie, certainly has the fanbase to make it a hit so there is no reason to doubt it making the needed $67 million and then some. For the box office to hit $100 million however, it will need some help from the holdovers.
If numbers continue their usual recent trends, expect to see ‘F9: The Fast Saga’ to drop around 35% next weekend for a take around $15 million approximately. ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’, being family friendly animation, will likely drop around 40% for a take of about $9.6 million. ‘The Forever Purge’ will most likely see a 60% drop for a take of around $5 million. ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’ may be able to hold on in fifth place dropping 15% for a take of around $3.4 million.
Whether my estimates hold up, it is still a very safe bet that theaters will enjoy a $100 million weekend from July 8 to 10.