Well it looks like the race for #1 this weekend is going to be close as newcomer Detective Pikachu and Avengers: Endgame go head to head this weekend for the top spot. According to Friday's box office numbers, Detective Pikachu was actually able to claim the #1 slot with an estimated $20.7M while Avengers: Endgame was second best with $16M. As of now Pikachu is looking at a $50M range opening weekend with a chance of hitting $60M, it all depends on how it performs on Saturday and Sunday. As of now, it looks like Pikachu will most likely win the weekend but Avengers could have a big jump on Saturday and surpass it. Either way, the race is going to be close.
Obviously Pikachu opening in the $50M-$60M range is below our prediction of $70M-$110M. I don't know what I was on exactly when I made those predictions I think I heavily overestimated the Pokemon brand and expected the film to break out oversees more. Still this debut would be a good start for the franchise and while this isn't meeting my initial predictions, it's still a really solid opening. It's apparently supposed to make around $40M in China which is okay, I was expecting way more if I'm being honest but that's still a solid start. As of now I don't think this is making anywhere close to the $1.1B ceiling prediction or even the floor prediction of $700M but we'll see. I know these numbers might not match many people's predictions but it's still a good number and I'm sure WB will be happy enough with these numbers. I'm downgrading my prediction now to around $500M-$600M worldwide with around $150M-$180M domestic (A serious change from the $250M-$315M domestic prediction I originally made). Either way it will be fun to see which movie ends up at the top this weekend. To be honest, I'm rooting for Pikachu because it would be interesting and fresh to have a new film be #1.
Moving onto Endgame, the domestic total currently stands at $676M and will most likely surpass Infinity War's $678M total probably by tomorrow and might have a solid shot at surpassing Black Panther's $700M domestic to become the highest grossing MCU film domestically. It does seem that Avengers is facing a heavy drop this weekend but I'm going to try and stay optimistic by predicting a domestic finish around $760M-$850M range. $800M domestic is very likely but we have to see how it holds in the next few weeks among all these new releases. Currently next Friday we have John Wick: Chapter 3 and then the release of Aladdin the week after, although who knows how that will go given the negative reception based off early trailers. Worldwide, Endgame has earned over $2.3B and still has a shot at surpassing Avatar, however it's still not a "lock" just yet, let's wait and see how it performs next weekend. Based off these drops, I don't think this will beat The Force Awaken's domestic total but should surpass Avatar's domestic. It does appear Endgame is front loaded which is not a surprise at all considering how it literally opened to over $357M during it's opening weekend.
So the race is now officially on as the summer movie season is off to a solid start. Expect Pikachu to have solid legs over the summer as it doesn't have much competition next weekend and with Aladdin being it's only main comp for family movies, it has a chance at having a very solid run. Come back tomorrow to see who wins the box office. It'll be an interesting one for sure.
Follow us on twitter at @themixersmedia for all your entertainment and media related news and updates.
