A movie released in 2019 could win the domestic box office this weekend. Disney's Avengers: Endgame Encore is projected to earn $25 million to $28 million from its return to theaters, according to Variety. Its closest challenger is last weekend's champion, Resident Evil, which is expected to take $24 million to $26 million in its second weekend. With the ranges overlapping, the race for No. 1 is too close to call.
Resident Evil enters that contest with momentum. Zach Cregger's reboot opened to about $60 million domestically last weekend, the franchise's strongest debut. The question now is how much of that audience it can retain when Marvel offers fans another chance to see Endgame on the big screen.
The battle behind them may be just as revealing. Variety projects that Brad Pitt's survival adventure The Heart of the Beast and Robert Pattinson's Primetime could each open between $17 million and $20 million. The animated Forgotten Island is forecast to make $15 million to $17 million. That leaves three new films competing for third place, with relatively little separating their predicted totals.
Their opening numbers will mean different things for each production. Primetime, inspired by the making of To Catch a Predator, reportedly cost $15 million to produce. The Heart of the Beast and Forgotten Island carry reported production budgets of $82 million and $80 million, respectively. A close finish this weekend could therefore conceal a much bigger difference in what each film needs from the weeks ahead.
Pitt's film follows a veteran and his dog after a plane crash leaves them facing a trek through the Alaskan wilderness. Primetime offers a very different draw, with Pattinson playing journalist Chris Hansen. Forgotten Island enters as the family option, following two friends stranded in a mystical world. Their varied audiences make the contest for third place especially difficult to predict.
Then there is the unusual prospect at the top: how much will audiences pay to revisit a film they already know? An Endgame Encore victory would show the strength of Marvel nostalgia ahead of December's Avengers: Doomsday. A Resident Evil hold at No. 1 would be an equally clear sign that the reboot's opening weekend was more than a burst of franchise curiosity.
These are predictions, not results. By Sunday, the weekend should answer two questions: whether an Avengers rerelease can reclaim the box office crown, and which of the three newcomers has made the strongest start.
