{"id":37519,"date":"2025-03-12T15:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T19:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/?p=37519"},"modified":"2025-03-14T12:08:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T16:08:46","slug":"weekend-preview-novocaine-locked-in-tight-race-for-first-with-mickey-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/weekend-preview-novocaine-locked-in-tight-race-for-first-with-mickey-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Preview: NOVOCAINE Locked in Tight Race for First With MICKEY 17"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/share.transistor.fm\/e\/09dd1555\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-boxoffice-podium\">The Boxoffice Podium<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-forecasting-the-top-3-movies-at-the-domestic-box-office-march-14-16-2025\">Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | March 14 \u2013 16, 2025<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-week-11-march-14-16-2025\">Week 11 | March 14 \u2013 16, 2025<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-1-mickey-17-warner-bros-week-2-weekend-range-7m-10m-showtime-market-share-11\">1. Mickey 17<br>Warner Bros. | Week 2<br>Weekend Range: $7M \u2013 $10M<br>Showtime Market Share: 11%<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pros<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Warner Bros.&#8217; big sci-fi gamble <em>Mickey 17<\/em> managed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/weekend-box-office-mickey-17-rockets-to-top-spot-with-19m-debut\/\">open on par with industry expectations<\/a> at $19M, which in itself is a minor victory during a very slow March. Over this extended dry spell we expect the overall forthcoming box office frame to once again fall well below this time last year when <em>Kung Fu Panda 4 <\/em>and <em>Dune: Part Two<\/em> ruled theaters. However, that absence of tentpoles gives a quirky original like <em>Mickey 17<\/em> a vacuum to fill with its star power and Oscar pedigree via <em>Parasite<\/em> director Bong Joon-ho. PostTrak exit polls gave the movie an encouraging 4 stars and a 63% definite recommend, which may be reflected if the percentage drop this frame winds up being under 50%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Despite this picture doing moderately well for an early spring release, as well as being a perfect placeholder for an industry low on blockbuster titles, there&#8217;s still the whole budget thing. <em>Mickey 17<\/em> has earned $54.6M globally so far, but the production costs alone (disregarding P&amp;A) are well north of $100M. Odds for it to reach theatrical breakeven are not great. Having also sunk a fortune into their upcoming Leonardo DiCaprio starrer <em>One Battle After Another<\/em> (from PT Anderson, who&#8217;s lifetime filmography has made $170M domestic), Warners may be playing the <em>Red One <\/em>game of using theatrical as a marketing tool for these original movies&#8217; eventual debut on Max.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-2-novocaine-paramount-pictures-new-weekend-range-7m-10m-showtime-market-share-14\">2. Novocaine<br>Paramount Pictures | New<br>Weekend Range: $7M \u2013 $10M<br>Showtime Market Share: 14%<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pros<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Paramount is giving their wild card acting movie <em>Novocaine<\/em> the red carpet rollout this weekend in 3,300 domestic locations. Starring Jack Quaid as an average hero whose medical superpower is he can&#8217;t feel pain, the comedic high concept hails from indie director team Dan Berk and Robert Olsen. Critical has been so encouraging (88% on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/novocaine_2025\">Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>) that the studio held word-of-mouth screenings in 1200 theaters on March 8. While we&#8217;re giving the weekend to <em>Mickey 17<\/em>, it can easily go either way. <em>Novocaine<\/em> currently has a significant lead in terms of showtimes, besting all titles in the&nbsp;United States with 18% of the total market share.&nbsp;This one has sleeper potential.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>One drawback is the Hard-&#8220;R&#8221; gore factor, which may have hurt Neon&#8217;s <em>The Monkey<\/em> recently. A similar comp would be the 2006 Jason Statham action comedy <em>Crank<\/em>, whose premise of a hero who needs to keep his adrenaline up to stay alive resulted in a $27.8M domestic performance. There are also a few other openers that could spell trouble to <em>Novocaine<\/em>, with A24&#8217;s poorly-reviewed thriller <em>Opus <\/em>as well as the Ketchup release of WB&#8217;s orphaned animated film <em>The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie<\/em>. Despite positive notices for the latter, we expect both to fall outside the Top 3 with single-digit debuts due to limited marketing support.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-3-black-bag-focus-features-new-weekend-range-6m-8m-showtime-market-share-9\">3. Black Bag<br>Focus Features | New<br>Weekend Range: $6M \u2013 $8M<br>Showtime Market Share: 9%<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pros<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You&#8217;ve got to hand it to Universal\/Focus for taking the plunge on a mid-budget throwback spy thriller squarely aimed at the older quadrant. <em>Black Bag<\/em> has Oscar-caliber talent in front of (Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender) and behind the camera (Steven Soderbergh, in this case literally since he&#8217;s also the DP). Then you have the script from David Koepp, one of the most clockwork mainstream screenwriters in the game who also happened to pen the first <em>Mission: Impossible<\/em>. Over a decade ago Focus Features managed to turn the similarly character-oriented\/action-lite <em>Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy<\/em> into a modest Oscar-nominated hit ($81.4M WW), although that had the benefit of being based on an iconic John le Carr\u00e9 novel. Reviews for <em>Black Bag <\/em>are superlative at 93% on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/black_bag\">Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>, although positive notices couldn&#8217;t help drive ticket sales to the director&#8217;s prior 2025 release, <em>Presence<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The streets of the 2020&#8217;s are littered with the corpses of original spy thrillers that did not work at the box office: <em>The Rhythm Section<\/em>, <em>Ava<\/em>, <em>The Courier<\/em>, <em>Tenet<\/em>. Even more comedic espionage films like <em>Argylle<\/em> or <em>My Spy<\/em> did not connect. This is partly due to the fact that every other major movie in this genre that&#8217;s not James Bond or Ethan Hunt has gone to streaming (<em>The Gray Man<\/em>, <em>Without Remorse<\/em>, <em>Red Notice<\/em>). Without the pyrotechnics of a franchise budget, <em>Black Bag<\/em> may over index with the 35+ audience but with very little appeal in quadrants beyond, especially with two middle aged leads and your dad&#8217;s James Bond (Pearce Brosnan) in a co-starring role. Even <em>Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy<\/em> only did $24.1M here in the states, so hopefully <em>Black Bag<\/em> can mortgage its largely European cast into bigger numbers overseas since we&#8217;re looking at an under-$10M debut in line with Soderbergh&#8217;s 2012 spy thriller <em>Haywire<\/em> ($8.4M opening\/$18.9M domestic total).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Boxoffice Podium Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | March 14 \u2013 16, 2025 Week 11 | March 14 \u2013 16, 2025 1. Mickey 17Warner Bros. | Week 2Weekend Range: $7M \u2013 $10MShowtime Market Share: 11% Pros Cons 2. NovocaineParamount Pictures | NewWeekend Range: $7M \u2013 $10MShowtime Market Share: 14% [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":37520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[5693,5676,5694],"class_list":["post-37519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-forecasts-tracking","tag-black-bag","tag-mickey-17","tag-novocaine"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}