\n\tTalk to distribution sources and they\u2019re crying how we\u2019re bound for one of the year\u2019s lowest-grossing weekends. There\u2019s even unfortunate chatter out there that this summer, currently at $3.4 billion and up 2% from last summer, might come in even or under 2024\u2019s. Yikes.<\/p>\n
\n\tThen out of the blue, Netflix<\/a>, the $512.6 billion content streaming company that is all about subscriptions and never theatrical, is releasing a sing-along version of its widely watched animated movie Kpop Demon Hunters in roughly 1,700 locations in what is strictly a Saturday and Sunday play in most circuits except for AMC. There are 1,100 sites sold out. As of this minute, per sources, Kpop Demon Hunters <\/strong>is looking at a surprise No. 1 win with around $15 million+<\/strong> (some have it higher), besting the third weekend of New Line\u2019s Zach Cregger movie Weapons<\/a> <\/strong>which is looking to do $13.5M<\/strong>. Weapons is about to cross $100M at the domestic B.O. either today or definitely by Friday.<\/p>\n \n\tKpop Demon Hunters is currently the second most viewed movie on Netflix with 210.5 million global views and is bound overtake the streamer\u2019s most watched movie Red Notice, which stands at 230.9 million views. Over the last two weeks the movie had been an anomaly on the OTT service with 26M views per week, a 0% decrease.<\/p>\n \n\tOur understanding is that Weapons has 3.9 million seats available to be sold this weekend to Kpop Demon Hunters\u2018 3.4M. <\/p>\n \n\tHere are the asterisks: Kpop Demon Hunters is a slight headache for some box office sources to predict because it\u2019s only a Saturday and Sunday show. The movie isn\u2019t really going to register on some weekend reports until Saturday, not tomorrow. Also, the movie is aimed at young females, a that can show up in bulk initially then fall off. That said, presales on Kpop Demon Hunters have sources excited.<\/p>\n \n\tNetflix doesn\u2019t report grosses, though it did provide guidance when it had Rian Johnson\u2019s Knives Out: Glass Onion out in its exclusive Thanksgiving 2022 one-week run (that did include No. 1 chain AMC); the title grossed $15M stateside (in what was a $400M package for parts 2 and 3 bought by the streamer). In addition, Netflix doesn\u2019t unveil its grosses in ComScore, the shared movie ticket sales system shared by exhibition and distributors when it comes to box office grosses.<\/p>\n \n\tKpop Demon Hunters is co-written and co-directed by\u00a0Maggie Kang<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Chris Appelhans<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0follows Rumi (Arden Cho<\/a>), Mira (May Hong<\/a>) and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo<\/a>), three young-adult popstars in a group called Huntr\/x, who are tasked to deal with supernatural threats because of their ancient demon slayer lineage. However, when their biggest demonic enemy (Lee Byung-hun) encourages the formation of an equally popular K-pop boy band aimed at stealing the souls of their fans, the trio has to fight harder than ever to hold the demons at bay while keeping their friendship intact. The two factional Kpop groups in the movie are now the highest-charting Kpop groups ever next to real ones like BTS and Blackpink.<\/p>\n \n\tThose wide releases this weekend are largely aimed at upscale metro audiences, with Focus Features\u2019 Ethan Coen-directed Honey Don\u2019t!<\/strong> eyeing $3M+<\/strong> at 1,300 locations and Bleecker Street\u2019s David Mackenzie-directed Relay <\/strong>eyeing single digits<\/strong> at 1,458 sites.<\/p>\n \n\tKatie Campione contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Talk to distribution sources and they\u2019re crying how we\u2019re bound for one of the year\u2019s lowest-grossing weekends. There\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,95112,4659,67,132,68,9826],"class_list":{"0":"post-165165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-k-pop-demon-hunters","10":"tag-netflix","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-weapons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115069672759286337","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}