Tracking For BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE Is Through The Roof. With One Week To Go, Could It Have The Largest September Opening Ever?

It’s been a good week for BEETLEJUICE. The film earned solid reviews when it opened at the Venice International Film Festival last week and has been posting sky-high tracking numbers.

Currently, overall awareness for the film is at 73%, the highest of any film over the past three years. It is just the fourth film to reach 70% the week before release after WONKA, AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER, and DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE.

Interest in BEETLEJUICE sits at 67%, the second highest over the past three years behind only DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, at 68%.

And BEETLEJUICE has reached 13% in unaided awareness, which is the fourth highest behind BARBIE (25%), DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE (14%), and THE LITTLE MERMAID (14%). In fact, it is just the sixth film to top 10% unaided at one week out. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: VOLUME 3 and SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE both had 11%. MERMAID is the only one not to open above $100M, and with a $96M debut, it didn’t miss by much.

What does this all mean? It’s posting numbers that are not that far off from DEADPOOL. BARBIE debuted to $162M, and DEADPOOL arrived with a $211M frame. Does that mean BEETLEJUICE could reach $160M or $200M? No. Probably not. The big difference is that both films opened in July, not September. Over the past decade, July, in the heart of the summer, has yielded seven $100M+ openings. September, when kids are back in school, has produced only one. IT notched a $123M debut back in 2017. That’s it.

So, yes, there is a natural biorhythm to the box office—seasonality matters. The odds of reaching $100M are much smaller in September. Having said that, BEETLEJUICE is posting some undeniably impressive numbers. Week after week, The Quorum’s opening weekend forecast has continued to rise. Currently, the data points to an opening between $95M and $109M.

Could it top the $123M for IT and become the largest September release of all time? It certainly could. We’ll have to see how the final week shakes out. But at the moment, it has momentum on its side.

More importantly, with good reviews, BEETLEJUICE’s story will likely extend beyond its opening weekend. TRANSFORMERS ONE is the only September release tracking to open north of $20M, which means BEETLEJUICE could own the top spot until JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX arrives in October.

There was lots of doom and gloom in the air when THE FALL GUY launched the summer on a soft note. Since then, the box office story has been overwhelmingly positive. With BEETLEJUICE, it’s nice to see ticket sales extend into September. Oh, by the way, JOKER in October looks good too. But that’s a story for another day.