Long-Term Forecast: Can SPEAK NO EVIL or THE KILLER'S GAME Attract Crossover Audiences? - Boxoffice

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Long-term forecast — September 13, 2024

Don't say anything bad | Universal
Domestic Opening Weekend Price Range: $12-20 Million

The third in a series of four films slated for 2024 from genre mainstay Blumhouse, Don't say anything bad It's highly unlikely to reach the box office heights of some of the production company's previous big hits, but don't count it out as a solid mid-range success heading into Halloween.

So far, this year has been much less lucrative than last year for Blumhouse, which has seen crossover success with 2023 releases M3GAN ($30.4M domestic opening, $95.1M domestic total) and Five Nights at Freddy's($80M domestic opening, $137.2M domestic total); the latter film exceeded opening weekend expectations and went on to become the highest-grossing horror film of the year. Blumhouse's other releases from last year, the franchise's entries Insidious: The Red Door ($33M domestic opening, $82.1M domestic total) and The Exorcist: Believer ($26.4 million domestic opening, $65.5 million domestic total), didn't reach that level of success, but they still contributed to a much better year than Blumhouse is having so far in 2024, with the January film Night swimming ($11.7M domestic opening, $32.4M domestic total) and March Imaginary ($9.9M domestic opening, $28M domestic total) but failed to make waves at the box office. (Blumhouse's Afraidin theaters August 30 from Sony, is expected to gross between $7 million and $12 million.)

An English-language remake of a 2022 Danish film, Don't say anything bad co-stars James McAvoy, who previously appeared in the 2017 film Divide ($40M opening weekend, $138.1M domestic opening) and 2019 Glass ($40.3 million opening weekend, $111 million total U.S.), Blumhouse's third and fifth highest domestic grosses of all time, respectively. Its return to the horror genre should be a boost among fans of the genre, though Don't say anything bad doesn't have the advantage of having a marquee name (M. Night Shyamalan) in the director's chair, as Divide And Glass done. Piloting Don't say anything bad is James Watkins, whose comparable titles—2008 Lake Eden and 2012 The woman in blackthe first salvo in a short-lived reboot of the legendary Hammer brand - both came out long enough ago that their box office totals aren't particularly informative here. More appropriate points of comparison are the Barbarous ($10.5M national opening) and Smile ($22.6M national opening) or 2015 The Visit ($25.4 million domestic opening), all three horror titles are based on new (or new to American audiences) intellectual property.

The Killer Game | Lionsgate
Domestic Opening Weekend Price Range: $5-10 Million

Lionsgate has a fairly diverse schedule to finish 2024, with titles ranging from genre remakes to The Raven to Francis Ford Coppola's passion project Megalopolis as a horror Never give up and family titles that do good white bird And The best Christmas show ever. With the September release of The Killer Gamethe studio behind the John Wick The films are betting on action, which hopefully suits them well, as the studio has several upcoming titles in that genre, including Den of Thieves: Pantera, In the gray, The War Ministry without a Gentlemanand the long-delayed John Wick spin-off Ballerina.

With The Killer GameLionsgate is going for an action comedy, starring Dave Bautista as a hitman who, thinking he has a terminal illness, commits an irreparable heist, only to discover he's not dying. The sparse marketing suggests a tone that's in line with recent releases. The beekeeper ($16.5M domestic opening, $66.2M domestic total) and Meg 2: The Trench ($30 million domestic opening, $82.6 million domestic total) — although Jason Statham, the star of both films, has demonstrated more box-office appeal as a leading actor than Bautista, who has found more success appearing in large-scale ensemble films (the Dune And Guardians of the Galaxy movies; Blade Runner 2049) than in films that feature it more prominently; the latter group includes films from 2020 My spy (which was moved to a streaming-only release following a pandemic-era acquisition by Amazon) and 2019's Stuber ($8.2M domestic opening, $22.3M domestic total). Die-hard action fans will make or break this film, with mainstream crossover success unlikely; our box office panel predicts an opening in line with Lionsgate's September. Expendables 4which opened last year to $8 million.

Tracking Updates [as of 8/9]

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