MLK Weekend could have a close race at the box office as new release The Marksman goes head-to-head with Wonder Woman 1984. Our model thinks Wonder Woman has the edge, but it’s likely to be a close-run thing. Liam Neeson has an impeccable pedigree when it comes to action thrillers—this isn’t even his first outing in such a film during the pandemic—and Honest Thief beat expectations with a $3.6-million opening weekend back in October. Here’s what the model thinks about Marksman…

Coming off one of the slowest weeks of the year, things will improve slightly as The Marksman opens wide this week. The Liam Neeson action film will debut in 1,975 theaters and should be either the biggest or second biggest release of the week, depending on how many locations Wonder Woman 1984 plays in. Universal Pictures's, News of the World and The Croods: A New Age take the next two spots, playing in 1,953 and 1,855 theaters respectively. Walt Disney is bringing back The Emperor’s New Groove this week, which will be playing in 744 locations. For the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, IFC Films is releasing MLK/FBI in 120 theaters. Here are the numbers for this weekend…

Wonder Woman 1984 will easily top the box office chart again this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday morning, but it will fall 45% from last weekend. That’s a significantly larger decline than the rest of the films in the top 12, and The Croods: A New Age will overtake it in a couple of weeks if this trend continues. Wonder Woman’s total will stand at $32.6 million after today, compared to Croods’ $36.9 million, so there’s a strong probability that the two films will end up roughly tied at the domestic box office.

The theatrical market has everything working against it this weekend: a pandemic at its peak, a national constitutional crisis, and no new wide releases. All happening on what’s traditionally one of the slower weekends of the year. We’re not quite going to return to the lowest ebb in business since theaters started to reopen, according to our model, but it looks as though we might come close. Here’s what our latest analysis run says about likely business this weekend.

This week will presumably be one of the slowest weeks of 2021, with only a handful of films arriving in theaters — and none opening wide — until The Marksman opens next weekend. Wonder Woman 1984 is still tops at the box office and is expected to remain the widest release entering its third week. Universal Pictures has three of the next four widest releases on our list in News of the World, The Croods: A New Age, and Promising Young Woman, with all three increasing location counts from last week Here are the numbers for this weekend…

There’s precious little good news in the theatrical market as we start 2021. Although Wonder Woman 1984 had a relatively good opening weekend after its launch on Christmas Day, it declined steeply at the box office last weekend, and the combined earnings for all films reporting is only a shade over $10 million right now. Unfortunately, there are only two films scheduled to open wide in the whole month of January, which means we won’t see much of an improvement in the market, and likely some back sliding, particularly given the growing COVID-19 case counts and the high likelihood of continued restrictions on public gatherings around North America. The (slow) rollout of a vaccine is the one piece of good news, but it’s unlikely to have much of an effect on the things for several months. For now, here’s what’s in store for January…

Wonder Woman 1984 will remain top at the box office this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday morning, but it’ll do so in spite of a sharp fall from its opening weekend. Warner Bros. projects a $5.5-million weekend for the super hero pic, down 67% from last weekend. That’s not a huge fall for a film like this by historical standards, but it is a surprisingly-sharp decline for the New Year weekend, and considerably worse than any other film reporting, many of which increased their box office from Christmas weekend.

While we do not yet have a count, we expect that Wonder Woman 1984 will be the front runner once again entering its second weekend after debuting on Christmas Day. The film amassed an estimated $16.7m on its opening weekend, but like Tenet before it, Warner Brothers is laying low on its reporting for the super hero film. Of our official counts, News of the World comes in at the top of our list, showing on 1,928 locations, which is an increase of 28 theaters from its opening weekend. Still going strong is another Universal Pictures film; the animated Croods sequel, Croods: A New Age, which also increases locations this week from 1,726 to 1,751. For the first time Walt Disney has no recent movies out in theaters, as both The New Mutants and The Empty Man have ended their theatrical run. That said, the studio is re-releasing the 1979 sci-fi classic Alien on their Fox banner in 505 theaters this weekend. We will update any counts for Wonder Woman 1984 as well as any other films when we get them. Here are the numbers for this weekend…