In a quiet weekend at the box office before the start of the summer movie season next week, Zendaya is dominating the box office this weekend with her new film Challengers and a resurgence Dune: second part.
Josh O'Connor and Zendeya star in 'Challengers'
Challengers offers an adult entry into a market lately dominated by franchises and blockbusters, and also serves as splendid date night material for young adult couples who could help it reach the higher end of the estimates. Factor in Zendaya's fan base and Challengers should finish between $12 million and $17 million domestic.
It's harder to call internationally, but with most major markets open this week and weekend, Challengers It should see around $25-30 million worldwide this weekend, which isn't too bad on a $50 million domestic budget. Other territories such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Ukraine are just around the corner when the month of May begins.
A Challengers-Dune team?
Zendaya's fan base also has another chance to catch on Dune: second part in IMAX before leaving theaters. The sci-fi sequel pairing Zendaya with Timothee Chalamet gets a premium revival this weekend, filling more than 200 IMAX screens, even as its theatrical footprint continues to shrink. Dune: second part it's looking at around $1.5 million this weekend.
I'm surprised there hasn't been a cross-promotional push around Zendaya in marketing, frankly, since Warner Bros. Discovery is distributing Challengers internationally and is a partner of Legendary Pictures a dune franchise Ads touting this as the weekend for fans to see Zendaya's two films together in late spring, and leaning toward the date night framing, could have provided an additional boost to the box office
This is the type of pairing I recently wrote about to help the first quarter of 2024 outperform and set the stage for a summer movie season began with a pair of The Fall Guy on May 3 and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes on May 10.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes i The Fall Guy they're second-tier and third-tier franchises, respectively, so it's true that they don't have the top tier of the usual Marvel releases we've grown accustomed to seeing as the first summer blockbusters. However, they can combine to provide enough steady traffic to the theaters, while strong residuals, especially with proper cross-promotion, a track, also help to do an added duty to stem some of the box office bleeding this year.
Which is also the kind of opportunity currently available when you have good counter programming like Challengers — an adult drama with a bit of an almost thriller feel, sexy and boundary-testing, led by a popular star who also has a blockbuster still in theaters.
Without prejudice, Challengers it won't be another blockbuster, but it probably won't be another disappointment either. It should work well enough for secondary markets to make it profitable enough.
Equally, Dune: second part won't climb all the way to the top of the weekend box office charts even with its return to IMAX, but the film is on pace to cross $700 million worldwide and is still in the national weekly top-10 after two months of release due to remarkably small weekly drops (less than 1/3 drop last weekend).
Remarkable resistances
In another part, Civil war should drop to around $5-6M in the US this weekend, but could end up being overtaken by horror Abigail. The two were neck and neck last weekend, ending with Civil war the win for less than $1 million.
Both movies could be outdone by the MonsterVerse team Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, if that other Legendary-WBD collaboration falls below 40% again. This weekend should see the kaiju sequel stomp on $510 million.
Somewhere in this mix, The Ministry of War Ungentlemanly It'll take in maybe $5M, after a soft $11M domestic haul, but potentially helped by an A audience rating via Cinemascore, which puts it ahead of both. Civil war (B-) i Abigail (B). I wouldn't be surprised to see it top $6 million or so, but general public disinterest suggests it won't stick around for long.
The most interesting thing about this waste is Kung Fu Panda 4. Last weekend, the film's seventh opening, the animated sequel enjoyed 85% US dominance and 68% international, grossing $20 million in total revenue .
This type of dam have been taken Kung Fu Panda 4 to $485 million heading into its #8 weekend, so it could cross $500 million this weekend. I hope he celebrates this win at the close on Sunday.
