Weekend predictions: Superman will comfortably stay top, as new releases struggle for attention

July 18, 2025

I Know What You Did Last Summer

It technically won’t be the dog days of Summer until The Fantastic Four: First Steps is in theaters, but it feels like it already, with Superman headed for an easy win in its second weekend, and three new releases looking to go after moviegoers who have already seen the big blockbusters. I Know What You Did Last Summer is widely expected to win the race among the movies newly in theaters.

Here’s the model’s “baseline” prediction for I Know What You Did Last Summer, which was constructed before we had hard data on ticket sales…

It’s been close to 30 years since the original I Know What You Did Last Summer arrived in theaters, and was a fairly big hit, with $125 million worldwide on a $17 million budget. This installment is technically a sequel, but will be hoping to reboot the franchise, while providing some callbacks for anyone old enough to remember the original films.

Going into the weekend, our model thought it might perform fairly well, and its previews are decent…

The model thinks the previews are falling sufficiently far short of expectations to warrant a final prediction of $18.5 million (lower than either our fundamentals or previews predictions). That may prove to be high, given that this is shaping up to be a relatively quiet weekend in theaters. $15 million looks like a good bet though.

Smurfs is a potential destination for younger movie fans who aren’t already burned out on films aimed at their demographic this Summer. There were no preview shows, so we just have our baseline prediction to go on…

Tracking for family movies can be tough, and the consensus is that Smurfs will come in somewhat below $15 million. Only time will tell with this one.

Finally, Eddington will be looking for an audience that’s looking for something new. Our audience tracking was good on this one, and the model was expecting around $7 million going into the weekend.

(On a side note, A24 has now released enough films since 2022 that we no longer need to adjust for market strength for their releases—a welcome development, so far as modeling is concerned.)

The preview numbers for the movie are a bit weaker than expected, and again the model is following the trend in its prediction of a $5-million debut.

Here’s what the model thinks the top 10 will look like.

The model is expecting a pretty good hold for Superman. I think it’s probably being a little over-optimistic, but there’s little doubt it’ll top the box office chart. Jurassic World Rebirth should hold on to second spot, which means the new releases will make a relatively small impact on the market as a whole. Fortunately, we’ll have another $100-million-plus weekend overall, but signs of late-Summer weakness are starting to creep in.

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Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Weekend Preview, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Smurfs, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Superman, Jurassic World Rebirth, Eddington