{"id":733757,"date":"2026-01-31T20:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T20:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/733757\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T20:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T20:24:11","slug":"send-help-might-squeeze-out-a-win-over-iron-lung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/733757\/","title":{"rendered":"Send Help might squeeze out a win over Iron Lung"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The box office is being disrupted in a big way this weekend. While the Sam Raimi film\u00a0Send Help\u00a0will likely dominate the box office in the top spot, two niche titles,\u00a0Iron Lung\u00a0and\u00a0Melania, are posting stronger-than-expected results.<\/p>\n<p>Iron Lung\u00a0comes from YouTube personality Markiplier and is an adaptation of the video game. It\u2019s having <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joblo.com\/box-office-predictions-sam-raimi\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a stronger opening than we predicted<\/a>, with it on track for about a $15\u201317 million start, which is hugely successful for a movie that\u2019s self-distributed. Its success will no doubt pave the way for many other YouTube personalities to try their hands at film, and the opening is certainly something that will turn heads. It\u2019s getting decent reviews, with our own Mike Conway being a fan (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.joblo.com\/iron-lung-review\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">read his review<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>In the end, it likely won\u2019t open high enough to beat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joblo.com\/send-help-review\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sam Raimi\u2019s\u00a0Send Help<\/a>, which is looking at a $17.5\u201318 million opening (according to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2026\/01\/box-office-iron-lung-send-help-melania-shelter-1236703378\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Deadline<\/a>). While that\u2019s a fair result for a movie that only cost $40 million, it seems like a bit of a letdown that this terrific flick is having a rather low-key opening.<\/p>\n<p>Another movie making waves this weekend is Amazon\/MGM\u2019s\u00a0Melania, a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump. Directed by Brett Ratner (who many believe got the greenlight for\u00a0Rush Hour 4\u00a0out of the deal), the reported $75 million budget has raised eyebrows. The film is on track for about $8 million, which is strong for a documentary (and about $7 million more than anyone expected). That said, it still has a long way to go to justify its huge budget. It\u2019s performing similarly to a faith-based movie, in that it\u2019s playing to a specific audience who seem to be loving it, earning an A CinemaScore. Sadly, Jason Statham\u2019s Shelter is bombing, with it on track for only a $5 million opening, which is one of the worst results he\u2019s ever posted.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll be back tomorrow with a full box office roundup.<\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.joblo.com\/wp-content\/themes\/face3-joblo\/assets\/images\/joblo-logo-icon-2025.svg\" alt=\"JoBlo logo\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n        Subscribe to our weekly newsletter\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-signup-text\">\n            Get the latest movie and TV news, first looks, reviews, and interviews, straight from the JoBlo crew to your inbox.        <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The box office is being disrupted in a big way this weekend. While the Sam Raimi film\u00a0Send Help\u00a0will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,217746,49141,3943,163900,16,15],"class_list":["post-733757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-iron-lung","tag-melania","tag-movies","tag-send-help","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115991587369283522","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}