{"id":750041,"date":"2026-02-08T06:50:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T06:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/750041\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T06:50:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T06:50:25","slug":"send-help-and-indie-upstarts-leading-a-sluggish-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/750041\/","title":{"rendered":"Send Help and Indie Upstarts Leading a Sluggish Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Super Bowl means movie studios are wary of releasing anything theatrically, as virtually no one goes to the movies on game day, cutting pretty heavily into business. Plus, with the Olympics happening, the outlook is more dire than ever, which is why no major studios bothered releasing any new product this weekend (only for a logjam to crop up next weekend with\u00a0Withering Heights,\u00a0Crime 101, and\u00a0GOAT). As such, Sam Raimi\u2019s\u00a0Send Help\u00a0is on a clear path to retake the top spot, with it looking at about $9\u201310 million via <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2026\/02\/box-office-send-help-stray-kids-iron-lung-super-bowl-1236711737\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Deadline\u2019s predictions<\/a>, which would be a 50\u201355% drop from last week. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joblo.com\/send-help-will-lead\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">We predicted it would repeat<\/a>, but the rest of the box office outlook is quite different, with a lot of indie upstarts showing surprising muscle.<\/p>\n<p>One noteworthy opener is\u00a0Solo Mio, which stars Kevin James and comes from faith-based studio Angel (although the movie isn\u2019t particularly religious). It\u2019s opening with a better-than-expected $7.5 million. Markiplier\u2019s\u00a0Iron Lung, as expected, is seeing a big drop in week two, with it likely to fall around 67% for a $6 million weekend. This is unavoidable with viral stars, but with a $30 million gross, Markiplier has proven that social media stars can have a major impact on the box office.<\/p>\n<p>Surprisingly, Vertical Entertainment is having its best opening ever, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joblo.com\/dracula-review\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Luc Besson\u2019s critically maligned\u00a0Dracula remake<\/a> on track for $4.1 million. Meanwhile, K-pop is once again showing some serious mettle, with the concert film\u00a0Stray Kids: The dominATE Experience\u00a0likely making in the $5.5 million range. As expected,\u00a0The Strangers: Chapter 3\u00a0is suffering from a weak opening, with it likely making in the $3.5 million range, while A24\u2019s\u00a0The Moment\u00a0with Charli XCX is playing decently in a semi-expanded release (just over 500 screens) with about $1.8 million.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll be back with a full wrap-up tomorrow!<\/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 Super Bowl means movie studios are wary of releasing anything theatrically, as virtually no one goes to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,217746,3943,163900,221117,16,15],"class_list":["post-750041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-iron-lung","tag-movies","tag-send-help","tag-solo-mio","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116033685058062589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750041","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=750041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}