Weekend predictions: Wonder Woman to dominate Christmas weekend on screen and at home

December 24, 2020

Wonder Woman 1984

Wonder Woman will take us back to the 1980s, and possibly forward to the mid-2020s this weekend with an unprecedented release wide in theaters and simultaneously on the HBO Max streaming platform. What that means for its box office is, honestly, a mystery. While its performance will be very closely watched, there are so many additional confounding factors—the Christmas weekend, rising cases of COVID-19 around the country, theater closures and seating restrictions—that it would be unwise to draw too many conclusions from its performance. This week’s run of our box office model at least gives us a baseline to work from.





The model doesn’t have any built in “also on HBO Max” factor, so the $14.35 million prediction is based solely on the expected performance for a film like this and the combination of a reduced theater count and a low share of moviegoers (now at just 23%) that the model thinks are willing to go to theaters right now. We’ll be watching the results closely, but might not have them for a while—Warner Bros. hasn’t given any indication of when it’ll publish numbers, and usually shuts down between Christmas and the New Year. We’ll report anything we hear.



The model isn’t optimistic about the chances for News of the World. Dramas can have very long legs at this time of year, but generally don’t open strongly. Even a performance comparable to True Grit’s debut back in 2010 would deliver a weekend slightly over $3 million given market conditions. That’s probably the top end of expectations.



Promising Young Woman is likewise facing strong headwinds this weekend, but has awards buzz and great reviews in its favor. It’ll be around for a long time, but most likely won’t make a lot this weekend.





The market as a whole looks like it’ll grow dramatically from last weekend, but everything rides on the performance of Wonder Woman 1984. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, the worst is almost certainly behind us at the box office, but this will only be a small step towards recovery, and maybe not even that if Wonder Woman doesn’t deliver.

Correction: Updated 12/26/2020 to correct the figures for Joy in the comps for Promising Young Woman, which changed the prediction for Promising Young Woman and the weekend as a whole.

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Wonder Woman 1984, Promising Young Woman, News of the World