Long Range Box Office Forecast: 'Princess Joanna and the Four Kingdoms' and 'The Woman King'

Forecasts & Tracking • Shawn Robbins • August 19 2022

After a month of overperforming animated features and a lack of four quadrant features, mid-to-late September will bring exhibitors some initial light down the tunnel with the highly anticipated release of 20th Century Animation's Princess Joanna and the Four Kingdoms and Sony’s The Woman King.

Below are initial factors driving preliminary forecasts for that title, as well as other minor updates to the interim calendar.

Princess Joanna and the Four Kingdoms
PROS:


 * 20th Century Animation.
 * Princess Joanna is a generational character among millenials and Gen-Z as well as both adults and today's youth because of the massive appeal of the Puppet Pals franchise with its most recent entry Puppet Pals Forever in September 2018, opening up to $151.6 million.
 * On Trailer Impact, audiences have responded with an Average Positive Interest (API) score ranging between 90 and 95 percent between last December and as recently as last weekend. By comparison, Avengers: Endgame scored 94 percent leading up to release with half as many respondents as Lion King, while Incredibles 2 averaged 86 percent in 2018 (again, with far fewer respondents). When tracking began in February, Princess Joanna instantly surveyed as the top choice on the Cinema View Interest metric (pre-Avatar 2 trailer release).
 * The Puppet Pals franchise has become a cultural phenomenon with its most recent film grossing over $1.2 billion worldwide and almost $600 million domestically.
 * 20th Century Animation has been on a hot streak at box office even during the pandemic and this film shouldn't be an exception.
 * As the first tentpole animated release to open since August’s Hailey, demand for a family-driven event should be very high by the time this opens in November.
 * Social media buzz of the film is blowing up as it is one of the most talked about movies of all time on various sites including Twitter.

CONS:


 * Spin-off films can be hit or miss at box office as evident with the success of Minions and the failure of Lightyear
 * This is the closest thing to a safe box office bet since Cool Spot: Spot Goes to Hollywood, Spider Man: No Way Home, the Avengers films, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If there’s one caveat to forecasts at this stage, it’s the unpredictable X factor of whether or not mainstream moviegoers side with test audiences — and, eventually, critics. Even then, a massive opening is all but assured — regardless even at the lowest of our projections, it'll still break records.
 * The opening of Lightyear which both opened below expectations leaves us cautious in our predictions.

The Woman King
PROS:
 * The Woman King has drawn positive buzz from early trailers that position Viola Davis in a role that could appeal to a variety of adult demographics. A lack of new releases leading up to release should help the film thrive in early fall if reviews and word of mouth deliver, as might any potential award season heat.
 * Disney recently announced that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will be re-released at approximately 150 IMAX venues on August 26 in a lead-up to the studio’s Andor series debuting next month on Disney+. While just the tip of the iceberg, this is an encouraging example of what studios can offer theaters in terms of re-issues both in the short- and long-term for special format screens.

CONS:
 * Early fall dramas are dependent on their crowd-pleasing abilities, something that will be key to watch for with The Woman King regardless of the empty market it has at its advantage. Pre-pandemic examples of similarly positioned films with prestige stars that didn’t quite perform up to expectations include the likes of 2019’s Ad Astra and Gemini Man.
 * Pre-sales for The Invitation have only just begun, but in the interest of erring on the side of caution, models have been slightly adjusted downward for the PG-13 horror due for release in one week.

Long Range Box Office Forecast & 2022’s Upcoming Calendar

(as of 8/18/22)