Weekend predictions: Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard favorite to win weekend

June 18, 2021

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard looks like it should win the weekend fairly comfortably based on its opening day figures from Wednesday and the track record of action comedies that opened mid-week. Nothing is assured in the topsy-turvy world of 2021, but it would take a steep dive from the newcomer and an unexpectedly strong hold by A Quiet Place: Part II to see a different outcome.

Here’s what our model has to say this morning…

Strictly speaking, our prediction for The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard doesn’t come from “The Model,” but from comparisons with other action comedies (using a fairly broad definition of the term) that opened on a Wednesday during non-holiday periods. The “best” comp (and one Lionsgate was probably thinking of when they chose this release strategy) is Baby Driver, which turned a $5.7-million Wednesday into a $20.5-million opening weekend. Generally, these films seem to earn about 3.5 times their opening day over the three-day opening weekend, and that would translate into an opening weekend of about $13.6 million.

If I had used our more standard model for predicting the weekend, by comparing against action comedies and the first installment in the franchise, the prediction would be somewhat lower. As you can see from our full list of action comedies, these films fairly reliably generate around $15 million on their opening weekend. The Hitman’s Bodyguard did better than that, with a $21.4-million opening. With about 40% of the audience going to theaters right now, that would translate into a weekend around the $8 million mark.

The bottom line? If HWB is heavily front-loaded and falls into line with the general market for this kind of film then it might not get much beyond $8 million. If Wednesday’s numbers are an indication of its prospects for the weekend, it should top $10 million relatively easily. My hunch is the latter is more likely.

The only film that seems likely to threaten Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard for number one is A Quiet Place: Part II, although it would have to out-perform the model or benefit from a collapse from the favorite to do so.

The big unknown is In the Heights. If it has a typical second-weekend decline it will post something around $5.1 million this weekend. As I’ve discussed before, musicals can have very long legs as they bring back moviegoers for multiple visits. Given the strong reviews and positive audience reaction, I think Heights will beat that number, but it’s hard to say by how much. Anything over $6 million would be a good sign.

Overall this looks like it’ll be a down weekend at the box office as the market takes a breather ahead of the debut of F9: The Fast Saga next weekend. The top six topping $40 million would be a good sign that we’re headed in the right direction.

Bruce Nash

Filed under: Weekend Preview, F9: The Fast Saga, In the Heights, A Quiet Place: Part II, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard