In a rare feat, Universal Pictures could well hold the top three spots at this July 4th holiday weekend’s box-office thanks to one big holdover and two very different new films.
Following the $70 million debut of “Fast 9” last weekend, the action feature is expected to retain the top spot and is headed towards a $28 million haul for Friday-Sunday – a drop of 60%.
In addition, the studio is opening DreamWorks’ “The Boss Baby: Family Business” and Blumhouse’s “The Forever Purge” in cinemas with those expected to generate over $15 million and $10 million respectively. “Boss Baby” is also simultaneously debuting on Peacock, but due to that service’s lack of userbase, it isn’t expected to impact the film’s box-office much if at all.
Should it pull it off, this will mark the first time a major studio has owned the top three spots at the domestic weekend box office since Sony in February 2005 with “Hitch,” “Boogeyman” and “Are We There Yet?”.
Also helping it is the fact its biggest competition is not going for the box-office at all as the big-budget Chris Pratt sci-fi film “The Tomorrow War” will directly premiere on Amazon Prime, Steven Soderbergh’s crime drama “No Sudden Move” is a direct-to-HBO Max premiere, horror trilogy kick starter “Fear Street: Part 1 – 1984” is launching on Netflix, and horror/comedy “Werewolves Within” is going the PVOD route.
The only other real opener is A24’s 2020 Sundance thriller “Zola” which is on track for a low $2-4 million debut in its first five days.
Due to Universal’s agreement with theaters over shorter windows, it’s expected both “F9: The Fast Saga” and “The Forever Purge” will be available to rent on PVOD services like iTunes and Amazon in late July.
Source: Deadline
