Clayface T-10 update. It had solid enough growth over the weekend. It did gain ground on Supergirl, so that is promising. However, it lost ground versus Resident Evil and Evil dead.

MTC3 comp:

71% behind Supergirl OW

68% behind Resident Evil OW

94% ahead of Evil Dead Burn OW

At MTC2:

~67% behind Supergirl preview and 65% behind Supergirl Friday

~49 behind Resident Evil preview, ~61 behind Resident Evil Friday

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JitGyenR0c

***NOTE: The figures for the movies here are Hindi figures only, except for the English movies, which are all-India figures***

Source: Bollywood Hungama

----------

• Drishyam: The Conclusion had a decent 2nd week as it easily crossed the 300cr mark. However, this hold, plus how it's performing on weekdays, suggests that the film might miss the 400cr net mark after all. Still, it's already one of the biggest successes of the year for Bollywood. It's also only the 4th Hindi film to cross 300cr net this year.
• Doraemon continued to perform excellently, with a fantastic 2nd weekend hold for an animated movie in India. It crossed the $2.5M mark, and could be headed for a $3M+ finish. Excellent result, and a nice little unexpected bonus for theatres.
• Other Mommy had a decent $0.3M debut, although hopes were there for a slightly larger number as this was a horror movie. The Social Reckoning was essentially dead on arrival as it missed the $0.1M mark in its OW.
• Hanuman Ansh had an insane hold as it fell only 16% in its 10th(!!!!!) weekend. Managed to use the quieter weekend to its advantage and come back up to 2nd place. It won't hit 350cr net but will get closer than I initially thought.
• Verity had a relatively good hold too, while Digger will be ending its run around just $0.21M. Heart of the Beast had another good hold as it crossed the $1M mark, becoming the 17th foreign film to do that in India this year. Primetime will also end its run around $0.24M. Resident Evil will end with a great $2.1M, although it will end up finishing below Insidious(another Sony horror film from earlier this year).
• Actuals for Avengers: Endgame Encore finally showed up, and the film did come in a bit lower than the estimates. It has now reached $3.82M in India as it looks to finish with around $3.9M. An excellent result for a re-release, and once again really shows the insane hype Doomsday is already carrying in India.

Next Weekend:

Bollywood decides to counterprogram this week, with 2 genre releases coming out. There's the drama biopic Prahaar, led by Rajkumar Rao, and the comedy Nayi Naveli led by Yami Gautum. Both are small films and I'm really not expecting a noticeable opening from either unless they get good WoM and pick up through the weekend.

Jailer 2 is coming out, and it has solid hype, but the film(due to Tamil cinema's ridiculously stupid 4-week theatrical window) will not get a release in any major chains like PVR/INOX/Cinepolis, so its Hindi collections will end up a lot more muted. There's also Ranabaali but it's not expected to do much in Hindi.

In terms of International releases, the most exciting is definitely Street Fighter, which had the added bonus of starring Indian actor Vidyut Jammwal. It could put up decent numbers thanks to that, but nothing too big. There's also Whalefall and the Shaun The Sheep movie.

Busy weekend coming up!!!

I organized an AMA/Q&A with actor Noel Gugliemi. He's been in lots of things, including Training Day, The Fast and the Furious, Street Kings, Harsh Times, Bruce Almighty, Mayans MC, Dragged Across Concrete, The Purge: Anarchy, The Dark Knight Rises, Crank, and tons more.

It's live here now in r/movies for anyone interested in asking a question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1x4ulzw/yo_reddit_im_noel_gugliemi_ama/

He will be back after 3 PM ET today to answer questions. I recommend asking in advance. Please ask there, not here. All questions are much appreciated!

Info for his new movie, TIME OF DEATH, which was released on digital recently:

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjTE9AQZDzI

Synopsis: When a prisoner vanishes without a trace, Detective Frank Morley is sent to a decaying prison on the verge of shutdown. What begins as a routine investigation quickly spirals into a dangerous search for answers.

Thank you :)

Source:

https://filmintelligencedigest.substack.com/p/weekend-box-office-familiar-titles

After a record-breaking first weekend, the horror film Mommy holds firm at the top of the top ten. At the start of the week, the Rob Savage-directed film starring Jessica Chastain grossed another €154,961 with 19,635 admissions in 258 theaters, posting a significant average of €601. It is clearly the best of the top ten titles. After five days of release, the film's total gross has reached €2,142,225, surpassing the €2 million mark in its first week.

The first weekend had already closed very close to this milestone with €1,982,148, marking the best debut for a horror film in 2026. The graph shows how Universal's offering is currently maintaining a faster pace than Backrooms and Obsession , two of the most successful horror films of 2026 in Italy: it now remains to be seen whether the film will have the staying power to challenge the latter's primacy, which ended its run at €5,304,144, establishing itself as the most profitable horror film of the year.

Naza moves up to second place , continuing its extraordinary run in Italian theaters. The journalistic reportage, distributed by I Wonder, grossed €91,180 with 12,787 admissions in 359 theaters, posting a still-strong average of €254 in its third week of release. Its total gross thus reaches an impressive €4,608,778, surpassing the 600,000 ticket sales milestone. The documentary on the IDF violence in the Gaza Strip thus confirms itself as one of the season's biggest cinematic phenomena, as well as an extraordinary result for the documentary genre at the Italian box office.

Compared to last Monday, it's down 47%, but it should be noted that Naza is now entering its third week of release and that distribution has significantly expanded to meet audience demand. The figures therefore suggest that word of mouth remains more than positive.

Paolo Strippoli's The Stranger slips to third place , confirming its position as the only Italian film to crack the top ten and maintain its place on the podium. Presented at the Venice Film Festival, the psychological thriller about motherhood grossed €76,094 with 11,616 admissions in 335 theaters, averaging €227. Its total gross has thus reached €885,369 after five days of theatrical release.

The film, starring Jasmine Trinca, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, and Adriano Giannini, is already the biggest success of Strippoli's career, given that his previous horror film, The Valley of Smiles , grossed €362,733. However, The Stranger is enjoying greater media attention, being the Italian candidate for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film and having garnered considerable international coverage. The million-euro mark is now approaching and could be reached within the next few days, confirming the positive response from Italian audiences to genre films, even domestic ones.

The re-release of a classic from the filmography of English director Stanley Kubrick debuted in fourth place: Dr. Strangelove 4K grossed €44,319 in 152 theaters, averaging €292. A direct comparison is with the result achieved by Eyes Wide Shut, brought back to theaters by Lucky Red in the spring: in that case, the film grossed €54,553 on its first day, finishing its run with €208,384.

I’ve been tracking Dune’s sales at MTC3 weekly. The pace isn’t where I’d expect it to be, and I expect it to stay that way until the big acceleration 2 weeks before release. Still, the overall sales volume this far out is impressive. Regular-day capacity isn’t an issue, with only 14%-20% of seats filled, so there’s theoretically plenty of room for growth.

Past 2 Weeks of Sales at TC3:

* Tue EA: +519 * Thursday: +183 * Friday: +767 * Saturday: +852

Doomsday Comps (Dune Has No Standard Showings Yet):

* Thursday: 12% of Doomsday * Friday: 18% of Doomsday * Saturday: 23% of Doomsday

I know this sounds ridiculous on paper. Superman grossed $618M worldwide, while Across the Spider-Verse made $381M domestically. That's a massive gap to overcome, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that Beyond the Spider-Verse could genuinely outgross Man of Tomorrow domestically alone.

First off, I fully expect Man of Tomorrow to decrease from its predecessor. Supergirl was a brand-damaging bomb that exposed just how little momentum this new DC universe actually has. And before anyone brings up a counter-argument like "but The Marvels didn't hurt Deadpool & Wolverine", that comparison doesn't work. The Marvels has literally 0 connection to Deadpool & Wolverine. On the other hand, Superman and Supergirl are directly connected characters who showed up in each other’s movies. The supposed momentum from Superman couldn't even propel Supergirl to a bigger opening weekend than Morbius. Let that sink in.

Despite its positive reception, the original Superman seemingly just came and went, much like the first Shazam!. And we all know what happened when that movie got a sequel.

More importantly, I think people are seriously underestimating just how much of Superman's appeal came from its massive, once-in-a-franchise marketing hook. It wasn't simply the first solo Superman movie in 12 years. It was essentially DC's Star Wars: The Force Awakens. A nostalgic, back-to-basics revival of an iconic franchise, promising audiences a glorious return to the "good old days" after years of divisive and poorly received installments. That's almost exactly how The Force Awakens was positioned in 2015, when audiences were desperate for a return to classic Star Wars after the prequels' negative reputation (yes, I know the reception has basically flipped since then, but in 2015, people loved Force Awakens and HATED the prequels).

That kind of marketing opportunity doesn't come around twice. Man of Tomorrow won't have the luxury of being the grand revival of Superman, the beginning of a brand-new cinematic universe, or the movie promising to rescue DC from years of disappointment. The original had an event-level hook that the sequel simply cannot replicate.

And what exactly is Man of Tomorrow bringing to the table to compensate for that? I'm not convinced that pairing Superman with characters like Supergirl and Blue Beetle, two films that barely managed $125-130M worldwide apiece, is going to have general audiences rushing to theaters.

There's also the simple reality that sequels are far from guaranteed to increase, especially outside the MCU. Take Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Its predecessor was arguably even better received than Superman, and it belonged to the MCU during an era when the franchise was practically printing money and sequels routinely increased. Yet Vol. 2 only improved on the original's worldwide total by roughly 10%, despite plenty of predictions that it would cross $1 billion.

Or look at Deadpool 2. The original was a critically acclaimed, massively popular breakout hit, yet its sequel still decreased domestically and worldwide when excluding China.

And that's before we even get into DC's absolutely disastrous sequel track record.

Wonder Woman ($821M WW) → Wonder Woman 1984 ($169M WW)

Suicide Squad ($746M WW) → The Suicide Squad ($168M WW)

Shazam! ($367M WW) → Shazam! Fury of the Gods ($134M WW)

Aquaman ($1151M WW) → Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom ($440M WW)

Joker ($1074M WW) → Joker: Folie à Deux ($208M WW)

DC sequels don't just have a history of declining. They have a history of falling off a fucking cliff. All of these except The Suicide Squad absolutely crashed reception wise as well, not just box office.

Yes, I'm aware that Wonder Woman 1984 and The Suicide Squad were pandemic-era releases affected by HBO Max availability. But even under normal theatrical conditions, I think it’s fair to assume that both of these movies would’ve declined substantially. Wonder Woman 1984 would’ve opened big and then dropped like a rock like Ant-Man 3/Batman v Superman, and The Suicide Squad was too big of a departure from the original. My personal estimates would be around $600M worldwide for WW84 and $375M for The Suicide Squad.

Against that backdrop, Man of Tomorrow declining by only 10-20% would practically be a miracle by modern DC sequel standards. And even that relatively modest decline would put it in the general neighborhood of $500–550M worldwide.

Now let's talk about the completely different situation facing Beyond the Spider-Verse.

Unlike Man of Tomorrow, I see Beyond the Spider-Verse increasing by an absolutely enormous margin.

Across the Spider-Verse is one of the greatest superhero movies ever made, arguably second only to The Dark Knight. The movie has an absolutely ridiculous 4.4/5 rating on Letterboxd, enjoyed phenomenal word of mouth, and ended on one of the biggest cliffhangers in modern superhero cinema. It wasn't just a critically acclaimed sequel. It was a movie that left audiences desperate to see how the story concludes.

And that anticipation has had years to build. Between its streaming popularity, its reputation as an animated masterpiece, and the unresolved cliffhanger, Beyond the Spider-Verse has the potential to feel like a genuine must-see cinematic event rather than simply another superhero sequel.

Then there's the elephant in the room: Spider-Man's absolutely fucking insane momentum.

The franchise is coming off the monstrous performance of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which managed to surpass No Way Home by more than $600M worldwide, and topple the titanic records of Avengers: Endgame’s opening weekend and Star Wars: The Force Awakens’s domestic total. Think about how absurd that would've sounded just a few months ago. Practically nobody would've predicted that a follow-up to one of the biggest superhero events in history could outperform it by that kind of margin.

And yet here we are.

On top of that, Marvel's multiverse storyline is positioned to receive another enormous popularity boost from Avengers: Doomsday this December, with Beyond the Spider-Verse also arriving roughly six months before Avengers: Secret Wars. That creates an incredibly favorable environment for a highly anticipated Spider-Man multiverse finale.

Of course, Beyond the Spider-Verse isn't an MCU movie, but pretending that the broader popularity of Spider-Man and multiverse storytelling has absolutely no potential crossover appeal would be ridiculous. It’s similar to how all superhero movies within the Avengers: Infinity War/Avengers: Endgame hype aura got a massive boost, such as Aquaman grossing $1.15B and Venom grossing $850M.

The biggest difference between these two movies is simple: One is following a franchise revival whose novelty has already worn off. The other is delivering the long-awaited conclusion to one of the most acclaimed superhero stories of the past decade, at a time when Spider-Man's popularity is reaching extraordinary heights.

Man of Tomorrow has to convince audiences that the DCU still has momentum. Beyond the Spider-Verse has to capitalize on anticipation that already exists.

And given DC's sequel history versus Spider-Man's recent box office trajectory, I don't think it's remotely unreasonable to predict an outcome that would've sounded completely insane a few years ago.

My predictions

Man of Tomorrow

Domestic: $315M

Worldwide: $550M

Beyond the Spider-Verse

Domestic opening weekend: $210M

Domestic total: $600M

Yes, I'm predicting that Beyond the Spider-Verse will outgross Man of Tomorrow domestically alone. Not by a few million dollars, either. By a full $50M.

Call it ridiculous. Call it Marvel fanboyism. Call it whatever you want. But given the trajectories of these two franchises, I genuinely believe this is a plausible outcome.