Long Range Forecast: WARFARE, KING OF KINGS, DROP, THE AMATEUR Give Counter-Programming Options to Mid-April Moviegoers

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Long Range Forecast — April 11, 2025

Warfare | A24

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

Alex Garland teams up with his Civil War collaborator, Ray Mendoza, as a writer-director duo in this gritty drama based on a Navy SEAL mission into insurgent territory. The top domestic grosser for Garland as director and the second-highest for A24, 2024’s Civil War ($25.5 domestic debut, $68.7M domestic total) came out on the same weekend as Warfare and appears to cover much of the same thematic ground. That said, Civil War has several A-listers in its cast (Kirsten Dunst, Nick Offerman), giving it a draw among general audiences that Warfare—with its cast of up-and-comers, including Michael Gandolfini, Joseph Quinn, Charles Melton, and Will Poulter—may not benefit from. Other films about war from a soldier’s POV to hit theaters over the last decade include:

• 13 Hours (2016): $16.1M domestic opening, $52.8M domestic total
• Hacksaw Ridge (2016): $15.1M domestic opening, $67.2M domestic total
• Dunkirk (2017): $50.5M domestic opening, $189.7M domestic total
• 12 Strong (2018): $15.8M domestic opening, $45.8 domestic total
• 1917 (2019): $575,216 domestic opening (platform release), $159.2M domestic total

The King of Kings | Angel Studios

Domestic Opening Weekend Range: $8M – $12M

An animated faith-based title rooted in the writings of Charles Dickens, Angel Studios’ The King of Kings is hoping to connect with religious family audiences over the Easter holiday. Though Angel Studios has proven its ability to activate the faith-based crowd with films like Homestead ($6M domestic opening, $20.8M domestic total), Cabrini ($7.1M domestic opening, $19.5M domestic total), and the smash hit Sound of Freedom ($19.6M domestic opening, $184.1M domestic total), none of its films released to-date have been animated, making The King of Kings difficult to find comps for while itself serving as an important early indicator for the performance of Angel Studios’ animated musical David, out this November. Outside of the Angel Studios universe, the animated faith-based film The Star, distributed by Sony, opened in November 2017 to $9.8M, staying in theaters through the holiday season and racking up $40.8M domestically.

Drop | Universal

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

Drop is the third film out this year so far from horror powerhouse Blumhouse, following January’s Wolf Man ($10.8M domestic opening, $20.7M domestic total) and The Woman in the Yard, out later this month. (Read our long range forecast here.) That film’s opening will give us a better sense of how the 2025 horror market is shaping up; for now, points of comparison for Drop include previous April Blumhouse releases Truth or Dare ($18.6M domestic opening, $41.4M domestic total) and Unfriended ($15.8M domestic opening, $32.4M domestic total). Unfriended, like Drop, has a high-concept hook that involves modern technology; other recent releases to fall into that category include 2018’s Unfriended: Dark Web ($3.6M domestic opening, $8.8M domestic total) and 2016’s Nerve ($9.4M domestic opening, $38.5M domestic total).

The Amateur | Disney / 20th Century Studios

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

Rami Malek leads an all-star cast that includes Rachel Brosnahan, Laurence Fishburne, and Caitriona Balfe in CIA thriller The Amateur, which could prove a modest adult play when it hits theaters in mid-April. Co-writer Gary Spinelli previously penned the 2017 CIA thriller American Made ($16.7M domestic opening, $51.3M domestic total), starring Tom Cruise. Other comps include nerd-turned-killer crime thriller The Accountant ($24.7M domestic opening, $86.2M domestic total), the sequel to which hits theaters two weeks after The Amateur; American Assassin ($14.8M domestic total, $36.2M domestic total), like The Amateur about a man avenging his significant other via spy hijinks; and the Jennifer Lawrence-starring spy thriller Red Sparrow ($16.8M domestic opening, $46.8M domestic total).

Tracking Updates [as of March 14]