Weekend predictions: Exorcist is shrugging off poor reviews and heading to weekend win

October 6, 2023

The Exorcist: Believer

The Exorcist: Believer is technically the sixth movie in The Exorcist franchise, and the second attempt at rebooting the series (does anyone remember 2004’s Exorcist: The Beginning?). Critics haven’t generally been kind to this attempted resurrection, and, although audiences seem to enjoy it more, it looks like it won’t get good word of mouth. That won’t be enough to stop it from handily winning the weekend.

Here’s what the model thought of the film’s chances before we had preview numbers:

There’s an interesting divergence in performance between different horror franchise reboots. Scream and Halloween both had very successful reboots/restarts in 2022 and 2018 respectively. Generally, though, horror reboots and delayed sequels earn in the region of $10 million to $15 million.

The Exorcist: Believer is opening in a decent number of theaters—3,663, to be precise. It also had a very high audience interest level going into the weekend, all of which boosted the model’s prediction up above $20 million.

The preview numbers from Thursday suggest that was a good prediction:

Based solely, on previews, something in the high $20 millions seems like a reasonable expectation for the weekend. The weak enthusiasm of people who have seen it makes something in the low $20 millions seem a little more likely to me, particularly since previews have been fairly inflated compared to the final weekend outcome recently.

Either way, the film won’t have any trouble winning the weekend.

Here’s what the model thinks that top 10 will look like.

Note that Hocus Pocus is expected to slot into the middle of the top 10. I will say that our model for re-releases like this is not one I have a high degree of confidence in, but it has produced decent results in the past, so I’m using it again.

Also worthy of mention is When Evil Lurks, another horror movie, which is being released by IFC Films this weekend. I don’t expect it to make the top 10, but I can’t rule out the possibility. It opens in 659 theaters.

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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Hocus Pocus, The Exorcist: Believer, When Evil Lurks, Exorcist