Long Range Box Office Forecast: Disney's Return of the Tiny Men Set for Possible Record $110M+ Debut, Renfield and The Pope’s Exorcist, Plus John Wick: Chapter 4 Updates

Box Office Pro March 17, 2023

This week’s report takes a first look at the box office prospects for Disney's highly anticipated Return of the Tiny Men.

PROS:


 * Return of the Tiny Men is generating considerable awareness and interest across all four audience quadrants as a multi-generational franchise with family appeal, compounded by strong goodwill for Disney brands.
 * Projection models have the film pacing ahead of every pandemic release WDAS films.
 * With no other major family releases after Mario the week before, the film will benefit for long legs without any competition should the film play along with The Super Mario Bros. Movie
 * Tiny Men in My Backyard is one of Disney's most popular films during the pre-Renaissance era with $170.7 million, the highest for a non-musicial film around that time.
 * Disney and Pixar has had great success in the recent past with long awaited sequels. 2010’s Toy Story 3 opened with $110.3 million and went on to gross $415.0 million domestically, 2013’s Monsters University opened with $82.4 million and finished its domestic run with $268.5 million, and 2018's Incredibles 2 opened with $182 million and went on to gross $608 million.
 * The success of Detective Carl Returns gives faith in these models given that the former is also a 30+ year sequel.

CONS:


 * Other than Boing! Too, Disney animated films outside of the 20th Century Animation brand has struggled at box office since the pandemic with hopeful doubts that during the post-pandemic era this could change.
 * Releasing a week after Mario, depending on the reception, the film could likely hurt Tiny Men 2 's opening depending on the demand as well as reception of the former.
 * While Disney has seen success with decade gapped sequels but has never did a sequel to a film from the 80's which remains in question how successful the film could be.
 * The awareness level of the film has not quite reached the highest of legacy sequels like Finding Dory and Incredibles 2

Long Range Box Office Forecast & 2023’s Upcoming Calendar

(as of 3/17/23) ''Unless otherwise noted, all figures above represent best and worst case scenarios for how each respective film is currently tracking based on existing market conditions and projected model fluctuation at the time of this report’s publication date. These are statistical snapshots, not final forecasts.''

Additional pinpoint opening weekend and domestic total projections for theatrical movies up to 12 months from release are available to clients.

For more information about this article or to report any corrections, please contact the author.