Weekend predictions: Raya and the road to recovery

March 5, 2021

After an excellent opening for Tom and Jerry last weekend, all eyes turn to Raya and the Last Dragon. With theaters reopening in New York and San Francisco, the movie’s Disney Animation pedigree and 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a stronger market for family films than other fare during the pandemic, this seems like a film that could continue the process of rebuilding momentum at the box office. A simultaneous release on Disney+ could put the brakes on though, and our model isn’t convinced it’s set for box office glory.

Our model’s prediction is that Raya will open with a shade under $10 million. That’s not because of its release on Disney+ by the way—throughout the pandemic, we haven’t seen a statistically significant effect from simultaneous releases on streaming platforms or PVOD offerings. The reason for relative caution is actually that Disney, surprisingly, has a solid but not spectacular record for releasing non-franchise films in recent years. Films like Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Dumbo, and A Wrinkle in Time have all opened in the $35-million to $45-million range. Their animated films have generally done better—see Zootopia’s $75-million debut for example—and the final analysis came down to a judgment call on whether to include only Disney animations or all Disney non-main-franchise films in the analysis. A prediction based only on Disney’s non-franchise animated films would have come in higher, at the cost of looking at much older films.

The other judgment call in Raya’s prediction was whether to consider it a family movie. As I noted earlier in the week, Tom and Jerry’s opening was convincing proof that family films are performing relatively better during the pandemic. I decided to use the family-film pandemic adjustment for Raya, which bumps its numbers up considerably.

Where does leave us?

If we consider only the up sides of the equation—that Raya and the Last Dragon is a well-reviewed, Disney Animation, family movie—then a weekend between $15 million and $20 million isn’t out of the question. If we factor in the down sides—it’s not a pure family movie the way Tom and Jerry is, and it’s also available on Disney+, which has a bigger footprint than HBO Max—then something around $10 million is what one would expect. Anything over $10 million would be good sign for recovery, and anything close to $20 million would be very good news.

The first of the other two wide releases this week, Chaos Walking is burdened with very poor reviews (26% on Rotten Tomatoes) and a lack of buzz. Our model isn’t confident of its chances, in part because it’s assuming that only 23% of the usual audience is turning out for films like this. Anything over $2 million for Chaos Walking would be a good sign that general moviegoers are returning to theaters, although they might be the kind of movie fans that aren’t reading reviews before they buy their tickets.

The model is likewise fairly pessimistic about Boogie’s chances of lighting up the box office. It follows in the footsteps of Land, which, while not aimed at quite the same demographic, was also released by Focus Features. That film opened with $899,810 from 1,231 theaters. Boogie is playing in an extra 21 locations (most likely due to more theaters being open now), which may give it a small boost, but anything around $800,000 to $1 million would be good.

Overall, the model is predicting an 11% increase in total box office for the top six this weekend, and the best weekend of the pandemic so far for all films combined. The Croods: A New Age remains my personal bellweather movie. It was down 27% last weekend as Tom and Jerry gave it some competition for the first time in its run. Its trend this week has been encouraging though, with Thursday’s box office for the film up 23% from the previous Thursday. Its loss of 300 theaters this weekend will clip its sails a bit, but if it beats $1 million for the weekend that’ll be another sign that market conditions are improving.

Bruce Nash

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Chaos Walking, Wonder Woman 1984, The Croods: A New Age, Raya and the Last Dragon, Land, Boogie