October’s box office slowdown is expected to continue this weekend, but amidst a medley of new releases aimed at specific audiences, it is looking like a matchup of horror vs. anime for the No. 1 spot.
After grossing $3 million on Tuesday, Universal/Blumhouse’s “Black Phone 2” has a total of $32.4 million after five days and is expected to earn $12-15 million in its second weekend. On the low end of that projection, it is roughly a 55% drop from the film’s $27.4 million opening weekend and still higher than the opening weekend of any Blumhouse film released since the start of 2024.
Buoyed by solid word-of-mouth and its proximity to Halloween, “Black Phone 2” will be the film of choice between now and Halloween Friday for moviegoers looking for seasonal scares. At its current pace, it will match the $90 million domestic run of the first “Black Phone” and perhaps have a crack at $100 million depending on how well it holds against 20th Century’s “Predator: Badlands” during its fourth weekend in November.
How well “Black Phone 2” draws in general audiences this weekend will determine whether it retains the No. 1 spot against Sony/Crunchyroll’s “Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc,” the latest franchise anime offering from the specialty distributor which is projected for an $11-14 million opening weekend.
Don’t expect “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” numbers from this dark fantasy action title. “Infinity Castle,” unlike past “Demon Slayer” releases like “To the Hashira Training,” which was a compilation of older TV episodes with a tease of some new content, was a completely new chapter to the shonen series’ saga, which making it more of a must-see for its huge global fanbase.
But with Crunchyroll now established as a theatrical player among its core audience, the projections for its box office offerings are steadily rising, and “Chainsaw Man” is expected to top the $9.3 million opening of “One Piece Film: Red” in 2022 and match the $11.5 million opening of “To the Hashira Training” last year.
Meanwhile, the other wide releases this weekend are Disney/20th Century’s “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” and Paramount/Constantin’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s “Regretting You.” Both films are projected to earn openings of around $10 million this weekend.
“Deliver Me From Nowhere” stars “The Bear” Emmy winner Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in a film that explores the making of his deeply introspective 1982 album “Nebraska,” along with the struggles with depression that he had while writing songs both for that album and his 1984 global breakthrough hit “Born in the USA.”
Reception for the film has been somewhat positive, praising the performances of White and co-star Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau but criticizing the film’s dramatic arc. It currently has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 68%.
Due to its October release, “Deliver Me From Nowhere” is unlikely to match the $75 million domestic run of Searchlight’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” which launched last Christmas to a $23 million 5-day launch. But 20th Century will try to build up enough word-of-mouth among Springsteen’s fans — primarily over the age of 55 — to get them to come out over the course of the next month rather than wait to see the film on Hulu.
That will be essential for “Deliver Me From Nowhere” as the film, which was shot in Springsteen’s home state of New Jersey, carries a reported budget of $55 million.
“Regretting You,” meanwhile, is going to have a harder time drawing out moviegoers beyond the most hardcore fans of Colleen Hoover as the romantic drama’s early reviews have been largely negative with a 15% RT score with 13 reviews logged. The film was an acquisition title by Paramount and carries a $30 million production budget footed by Constantin.
Thanks to the breakthrough success of Sony’s “It Ends With Us” — which had the added dimension of behind-the-scenes controversies — Colleen Hoover’s novels have become a hot sell for studios trying to stock up their slates with films aimed at women.
But unless there’s a major divergence between the core audience and critics, “Regretting You” may suffer a similar fate to the low-budget “Roofman,” which tried to draw primarily female audiences to a tragicomic crime story with lead star Channing Tatum but has yet to cross $20 million worldwide after two weeks in theaters.
