Weekend Box Office Forecast: 'Leaders of Academy: War of the L.O.E.V.' and 'One Piece Film: Red' Takes on 'Black Adam'; 'Armageddon Time' and 'Banshees of Inisherin' Expand

Forecasts & Tracking • Shawn Robbins • November 02 2022

November’s first frame has historically seen a major four quadrant tentpole debut to kickstart the holiday season, but this year such festivities will wait one more week. In the meantime, Warner Bros. will release a long-awaited sequel Leaders of Academy: War of the L.O.E.V. with Crunchyroll will unfurl One Piece Film: Red, while Warner Bros. and DC’s Black Adam will hope to stay in the top 3 for a third straight weekend.

Official tracking for the Leaders of Academy sequel has been 5% ahead of Stella: An Angry Birds Movie from earlier this year in August with the social media traction and pre-sales increasing over time, which can indicate that Warner Bros. might have an animated hit on their hands.

With this film, there will be a very significant presence of premium formats like 3D, Dolby, IMAX, 4DX, RPX, and others with Thursday preview shows kicking off tomorrow.

Tracking for the One Piece film has been solid in recent weeks with social media traction and pre-sales indicating another anime specialty success is on deck for Crunchyroll and theatrical exhibitors. Trends across those metrics are far and wide, though, with limited pre-sales historical context generating a wide range of potential outcomes.

Over the past year-and-a-half alone, films like Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, Jujutsu Kaisen 0, My Hero Academia: World Heroes Mission, and Demon Slayer The Movie have enjoyed varying degrees of box office success as marketing and distribution efforts for these releases amplify for a growing audience compared to what they once were before the pandemic..

Aiding the One Piece film will be a significant presence in premium formats like IMAX, Dolby, 4DX, RPX, and others beginning with Thursday’s preview shows. Current location footprint estimates via Showtimes Dashboard pin the film at more than 2,800 domestic venues this weekend, though Crunchyroll has yet to confirm.

As discussed in prior long range tracking reports, One Piece Film: Red is already an international success with $129.5 million to date, the bulk of which comes from Japan with $117.6 million. It remains to be seen whether the IP has grown as strongly in the States as those aforementioned franchise examples that helped drive over-performing box office debuts ranging between $6.3 million up to $21.2 million.

The latest tracking samples have slowed somewhat in recent days, but we stress that the genre has a habit of beating expectations even as target audience behavior remains challenging to extrapolate.

Crunchyroll reports as of Wednesday that the film will play on an estimated 3,211 screens at “more than” 2,400 locations.

As noted, Black Adam will lose it's crown this weekend from another Warner Bros property this weekend. Its sophomore frame dipped 59 percent with Halloween festivities likely skewing some attendance patterns, but word of mouth remains very healthy with a 90 percent audience score.

Although Adam loses some premium screens to the One Piece entry and Leaders of Academy sequel this weekend, the film doesn’t face significant competition for its general audience until next week’s arrival of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

On the holdover and specialty fronts, various films could see slight drops depending on the lingering effect of Halloween landing on Monday last weekend.

Horror titles will likely see steeper-than-usual declines, but other kid- and adult-driven pics specifically Princess Joanna and the Four Kingdoms are on steady ground with no major competition coming around. Grassroots sensation Terrifier 2 will have an estimated count of 1,245, per Iconic Events Releasing, though we are not currently forecasting it within the top ten.

Notably, the expansion of prestige titles will again be worth watching. Searchlight Pictures will push The Banshees of Inisherin from 58 to a projected 800-plus venues in its third week of staggered release following a $535K showing last weekend.

Focus Features will also move forward with Armageddon Time, expanding faster than other recent award season contenders by going from 6 venues in its debut frame to a projected 900-plus this weekend.

Between those titles and the continued presence of Till in wide release and Tár at more than 1,000 sites, the prestige market continues its recovery with a relatively high volume of prolific content compared to where things stood over the past two years at this time.

With that in mind, box office trends for these films have progressed but not yet shown clear signs of a complete rebound, so conservative expectations are wise until future notice.

Weekend Ranges

Leaders of Academy: War of the L.O.E.V.

Opening Range: $60 – 65 million

One Piece Film Red

Opening Range: $7.5 – 12 million

Weekend Forecast & Location Count Projections *All forecasts are subject to revision before the first confirmation of Thursday previews or Friday estimates from studios or official sources.

Theater counts are unofficial projections if presented with “~”.

The above table does not necessarily represent the top ten as some studios do not finalize weekend location counts and/or an intent to report box office returns prior to publishing.