Long Range Forecast: OPUS, BLACK BAG, NOVOCAINE Seek to Draw In March Audiences

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Long Range Forecast — March 14, 2025

Opening mid-way through March, a trio of adult-skewing new releases have several weeks to tempt moviegoers into theaters before the summer movie season revs up.

Black Bag | Focus Features

Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $10M – $15M

Steven Soderbergh returns to theaters for the second time this quarter with spy thriller Black Bag, which sees the director reteam with Michael Fassbender (Haywire) and Cate Blanchett (The Good German), playing a married pair of spies. Star power should help Black Bag scare up a larger domestic gross than was enjoyed by Soderbergh’s ghost tale Presence, which opened to $3.3M in January of this year before topping out at $6.6M after three weekends. Black Bag is the first film from the prolific director since 2023’s Magic Mike’s Last Dance ($8.3M domestic opening, $26M domestic total); prior to that, his most recent theatrical release, the thriller Unsane (2018; domestic total $7.6M), opened to $3.7M in the fourth weekend of March.

Opus | A24

Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $5M – $8M

Positive buzz out of Sundance, plus the cross-generational appeal of its cast, could help Opus—about a young journalist (Ayo Edebiri, Emmy winner for “The Bear”) invited to visit the remote compound of a long-missing music icon/possible cult leader (John Malkovich)—find a space for itself in March. An opening in our predicted range of $5M – $8M puts Opus alongside fellow A24 releases MaXXXine ($6.7M domestic opening, $15M domestic total), It Comes At Night ($5.9M domestic opening, $13.9M domestic total), and The Green Knight ($6.7M domestic opening, $17.1M domestic total); a slight overperformance compared to our range would put it closer to Heretic ($10.8M domestic opening, $27.7M domestic total), similarly an A24 genre release about in which a young female protagonist (or two, in the case of Heretic) finds herself trapped inside the home of a older male protagonist with a messianic bent.

Novocaine | Paramount Pictures

Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $12M – $18M

This high-concept action/thriller led by Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder could be an original sleeper with some pop amid minimal competition. The Quaid-costarring Companion opened to $9.3M in late January, six weeks before Novocaine‘s scheduled debut; Midthunder’s highest-profile film role, starring in the Predator spinoff Prey, did not get a theatrical release. Previous spring action releases from recent years include Universal’s Monkey Man ($10.1M domestic opening, $25.1M domestic total), Sony’s 65 ($12.3M domestic opening, $32M domestic total), and Universal’s Nobody ($6.8M domestic opening, $27.5M domestic total).

Tracking Updates [as of February 14]