{"id":38214,"date":"2025-04-09T15:07:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T19:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/?p=38214"},"modified":"2025-04-17T12:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T16:22:10","slug":"weekend-preview-a-minecraft-movie-will-continue-to-mine-the-box-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/weekend-preview-a-minecraft-movie-will-continue-to-mine-the-box-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Preview: A MINECRAFT MOVIE Will Continue to Mine the Box Office"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/share.transistor.fm\/e\/75edb8b4\"><\/iframe>\n\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-april-11-13-2025\">Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | April 11 \u2013 13, 2025<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-week-15-april-11-13-2025\">Week 15 | April 11 \u2013 13, 2025<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-1-nbsp-a-minecraft-movie-warner-bros-week-2-weekend-range-70m-85m-showtime-marketshare-29\">1.&nbsp;<em>A Minecraft Movie<\/em><br>Warner Bros. | Week 2<br>Weekend Range: $70M \u2013 $85M<br>Showtime Marketshare: 29%<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pros<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>As we <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/weekend-box-office-minecraft-breaks-video-game-movie-record-with-300m-global-debut\/\">predicted on Sunday<\/a>, Monday actuals gave Warner Bros.&#8217; <em>A Minecraft Movie<\/em> a boost from $157M estimates to $162.75M, beating <em>Barbie<\/em>&#8216;s $162M performance in 2023. That&#8217;s a tremendous testament to the walk-up business the movie did on Sunday, which will hopefully continue into this week. Of course, with numbers like this Warner Bros. is already mulling <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2025\/04\/minecraft-movie-sequel-plans-director-jared-hess-jack-black-jason-momoa-1236362421\/\">a sequel with director Jared Hess<\/a>, but the real question for theaters is A) will the party continue into Frame 2 and B) will that translate to continued success with upcoming films like <em>Sinners<\/em> and <em>Thunderbolts*<\/em>? Despite five new wide releases this weekend, none of them pose a threat to Minecraft in terms of the under-25 target demo that gave the movie an &#8220;A&#8221; CinemaScore.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Our prediction panel foresees a sophomore frame drop around or slightly above -50% for <em>Minecraft <\/em>despite the movie&#8217;s thrust into &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/entertainment\/tiktok-trend-causing-mayhem-minecraft-204650737.html\">viral social phenomenon<\/a>&#8221; category. The best case scenario would be something akin to <em>Barbie<\/em>&#8216;s $93M (-43%) second frame. Critics were stick-in-the-muds about <em>A Minecraft Movie<\/em>, hitting it with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/a_minecraft_movie\">48% on Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>. Still, word-of-mouth makes this a cinematic experience, so reviews and overall &#8220;B+&#8221; CinemaScore will likely be overridden by the impulse to see this movie theatrically with a giddy audience. Let&#8217;s also hope China does not institute a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/china-mulling-ban-hollywood-film-releases-trump-tariffs-1236184531\/\">ban on American films<\/a> over recent tariffs, as that is Minecraft&#8217;s second-biggest overseas territory with $14.5M so far, ending <em>Ne Zha 2&#8242;<\/em>s reign at the top in that market. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-2-the-king-of-kings-angel-studios-new-weekend-range-12m-18m-showtime-marketshare-10\">2. <em>The King of Kings<\/em><br>Angel Studios | NEW<br>Weekend Range: $12M \u2013 $18M<br>Showtime Marketshare: 10%<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pros <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Based on a story by Charles Dickens, <em>The King of Kings<\/em> is a kid-friendly computer-animated Jesus story featuring a stellar mainstream voice cast including Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Mark Hamill, Pierce Brosnan, and Oscar Isaac. This one has some real sleeper potential given the proximity to Easter. While Fathom&#8217;s&nbsp;<em>The Chosen: Last Supper &#8211; Part 3<\/em>&nbsp;can be seen as competition,<em>&nbsp;King of Kings<\/em>&nbsp;has the upper hand since it&#8217;s more family-friendly and&nbsp;Part 2&nbsp;underperformed last weekend compared to&nbsp;Part 1. <em>King of Kings<\/em> has been gaining ground in pre-sales and could easily overperform well beyond our forecasted ceiling. Because of the competition this weekend, however, we&#8217;re keeping a conservative forecast while acknowledging a potential for a breakthrough performance.  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Biblical animated movies are generally relegated to DTV territory, although Dreamworks made some modest coin on their big-budget Old Testament 2D offering The Prince of Egypt back in 1999 ($101.4M domestic). More recently, Sony&#8217;s Affirm Films put out <em>The Star<\/em> in November of 2017, a Nativity story with talking animals that opened to $9.8M before pulling in $40.8M domestic. Between <em>The Chosen<\/em> and the other feature <em>The Last Supper <\/em>($6.48M domestic total) there&#8217;s been a lot of competition for the faith-based dollar, so hopefully the animated nature of this one helps it stand out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-3-the-amateur-20th-century-studios-new-weekend-range-12m-15m-showtime-marketshare-10\">3. <em>The Amateur<\/em><br>20th Century Studios | NEW<br>Weekend Range: $12M \u2013 $15M<br>Showtime Marketshare: 10%<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pros<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>20th Century Studios under Disney steps out of its IP comfort zone to bring us an original espionage revenge thriller starring Oscar-winner Rami Malek. The idea of a hero who&#8217;s less about Bourne-style beat-downs and more Saw-esque traps to take on the bad guys who iced his wife is appealing, plus the supporting cast is a murderer&#8217;s row of top-notch character actors, including Rachel Brosnahan, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Bernthal, and Michael Stuhlbarg. This one has a little more youth appeal than the recent spy clunker <em>Black Bag<\/em> ($20.69M domestic total), plus the Disney marketing machine behind it makes this a potential franchise-starter for Malek, who also produced.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>The Amateur <\/em>should open ahead of A24&#8217;s <em>Warfare<\/em> (a movie with no real hook beyond being another Iraq War film ala <em>Hurt Locker<\/em>), but the worst case would be both cannibalizing each other on opening weekend. <em>Amateur<\/em> is the more commercial title of the two, and a decent targeted&nbsp;ad campaign should help lift it into third place as an adult-skewing genre counter-programmer. As for its long-term prospects, it doesn&#8217;t help that two weeks from now we get another nerd-hero actioner in <em>The Accountant 2<\/em>&#8230; also featuring Bernthal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Boxoffice Podium Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | April 11 \u2013 13, 2025 Week 15 | April 11 \u2013 13, 2025 1.&nbsp;A Minecraft MovieWarner Bros. | Week 2Weekend Range: $70M \u2013 $85MShowtime Marketshare: 29% Pros Cons 2. The King of KingsAngel Studios | NEWWeekend Range: $12M \u2013 $18MShowtime Marketshare: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":38237,"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":[5705,5712,5746],"class_list":["post-38214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-forecasts-tracking","tag-a-minecraft-movie","tag-the-amateur","tag-the-king-of-kings"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38214","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=38214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}