'Incredibles 2' Positioned for a Record Breaking Opening Weekend

While last weekend's overall results showed a slight improvement compared the prior weekend's slumping box office returns, this weekend should see a much larger bump as Disney and Pixar release the highly anticipated Incredibles 2 into theaters. The Pixar sequel is the first fully animated wide release since March's Sherlock Gnomes, and it would appear the animated opening weekend record set by Finding Dory two years ago is in jeopardy. This weekend also sees the release of the R-rated comedy Tag from Warner Bros., Sony's Superfly, which debuted on Wednesday, as well as a pair of moderate releases in Vertical's Gotti starring John Travolta and Yash Raj's Race 3.

Debuting in 4,410 theaters, Disney and Pixar's Incredibles 2 arrives 14 years after the 2004 original, marking the longest gap between sequels for the animated house besting 2016's release of the 13-years-later sequel, Finding Dory. In fact, it's looking to top Finding Dory's $135 million debut, which currently ranks as the largest domestic opening for an animated film. Disney is remaining relatively cautious in outright expecting a record breaking bow, but they haven't left it off the table, anticipating an opening in the range of $120-140 million this weekend. Our expectations trend toward the higher end of those expectations.

Simply looking at past Pixar sequels such as Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3 and Finding Dory and the leaps each sequel's opening weekend took compared to its predecessor you're already looking at an opening around $135-139 million when you consider the $70.4 million opening for the original The Incredibles. Added to that, IMDb page views for Incredibles 2 over the two weeks leading up to release are vastly outperforming the likes of Finding Dory as well as other top animated openers such as Despicable Me 2, Despicable Me 3, Minions and Monsters University. One more signal would be online ticket retailer Fandango.com reporting the film is already the company's top animated preseller.

As for a forecast, our expectations range from $145-155 million for the weekend. The pent up demand from fans as well as the lack of major family films as of late is a confluence of events setting Incredibles 2 up for a massive opening and strong performance throughout the summer should audiences take to the film the same as critics, with it currently holding a 79 on Metacritic and a 95% on RottenTomatoes.

In second place we're expecting Ocean's 8 to hold steady, dropping around 49% for a sophomore session around $21 million, pushing the film's domestic cume over $80 million after ten days in release.

The new R-rated comedy Tag from Warner Bros. should land a third place finish from 3,382 locations. Studio expectations for the $28 million production are around $13 million, which is on the low end of what we're seeing based on comparable titles. Looking at IMDb page view data, Tag is pacing relatively similar to films such as this year's releases of Game Night ($17m opening) and Blockers ($20.5m opening) as well as 2014's Tammy, which debuted with $21.5 million. Our expectations aren't quite as high as those titles, considering all three comps tend to target a wide demographic than the male-dominated cast of Tag, but we are anticipating a debut anywhere from $13-17 million, with our expectations currently positioned in the middle-to-high end of that range.

In fourth place, Disney and Lucasfilms's Solo: A Star Wars Story should bring in around $9.3 million, pushing the film's domestic cume over $190 million.

Rounding out the top five, look for Fox's Deadpool 2 to add around $8.3 million for a domestic cume just shy of $295 million.

Outside the top five, in seventh place, we have Sony's release of Superfly, which began playing in 2,220 theaters on Wednesday and was originally expected to bring in around $10 million over the film's first five days in release. After $1.2 million on Wednesday, the studio is still anticipating a five-day performance anywhere from $10-12 million, which could still happen, but we're having a hard time seeing a path to that figure.

Since 2000, only seven Wednesday releases grossed between $800k-1.5 million on their opening day while playing in anywhere from 2,000-2,500 theaters. Of those seven films, none reached $10 million for the five-day with an average five-day of $7.3 million and an average of $5.1 million for the three-day weekend. We're going to go slightly higher than those averages, looking for a three-day around $5.5 million resulting in a five-day performance topping out around $8 million or so.

Elsewhere, Yash Raj will release Race 3 into 315 locations and might be able to crack the top ten as it is debuting in both 2D and 3D theaters, but right now we're expecting a performance around $1.7-2 million for the action thriller. Additionally, Vertical Entertainment will release Gotti into 503 theaters where we expect the John Travolta feature to bring in around $1-1.2 million or so.

This weekend's forecast is directly below. This post will be updated on Friday morning with Thursday night preview results followed by Friday estimates on Saturday morning, and a complete weekend recap on Sunday morning.

Incredibles 2 (4,410 theaters) - $150+ M
Ocean's 8 (4,145 theaters) - $21.2 M
Tag (3,382 theaters) - $15.3 M
Solo: A Star Wars Story (3,182 theaters) - $9.3 M
Deadpool 2 (3,212 theaters) - $8.3 M
Hereditary (2,994 theaters) - $7.6 M
Superfly (2,220 theaters) - $5.5 M
Avengers: Infinity War (2,164 theaters) - $4.3 M
Adrift (1,929 theaters) - $2.5 M
Book Club (1,656 theaters) - $2.3 M