Madame Web's Projection Slips Again

NOTE: I was delayed in putting this one up, but as it was already written and relevant to the more current post put up today, here it is.

Boxoffice Pro's first published long-range forecast for Madame Web (January 18) had the movie making $25-$35 million over the three-day Friday-to-Sunday period of Valentine's Day weekend--a far cry from not just what a Black Panther or a Deadpool made over the same time frame, but even what Daredevil did back in 2003.

The figure was already clearly slipping a week ago (February 1) with a $25-$35 million projection down to $20-$29 million last week.

Now (February 8) the projection is down to $15-$24 million--a 30 to 40 percent slippage of the range as a whole from what had initially been expected. The projection for the overall gross of the film has fallen with it, though not by as much. From $56-$101 million it has fallen to $42-$78 million.

This will, of course, be the publication's long-range forecast, the movie to be covered by the weekend forecast next week, as that is when it will actually hit theaters. But given the trend of prior weeks it seems plausible that there will be at least a little more slippage--and as I have often found, when the forecast keeps falling, there is a fair chance that the movie will do even less well than the bottom range of the forecast. (Recall, for instance, Expendables 4--a movie to which Madame Web seems a lot closer in level of anticipation and prospects than even last year's superhero flops.)

The result is that at this stage of things I think the film will be doing well even to gross $15 million, and would be much more surprised if it broke the $50 million mark than if it finished its run under it.