Notes:

• 2026 remains ahead of other post-COVID Weekend 43's in this comparison and the year's super power has been being consistent week-to-week.
• We are current $1.4B ahead of 2025 at this point and that should keep growing going into December.
• 2019 had no major new releases and still was higher than post-COVID years with legs from Maleficent 2 and Joker.

Before you comment, read these two rules:

1. Please provide specific numbers for your predictions. Don't do things like "It'll make less than this or that" or "double this movie or half this movie". We want a real prediction in concrete figures.

2. Given that a lot of parent comments do not even bother to give predictions, we are establishing a new rule. The parent comment must provide a prediction with specific numbers. The rest of the replies to the comment do not have to make a prediction, but the parent comment absolutely has to. Any parent comment without a prediction will be eliminated.

Welcome to the newest edition of r/BoxOffice Long Range Forecast.

We're making long range predictions for films, 4 weeks out from their premieres. You will predict the opening weekend, domestic total and worldwide gross of these films. These predictions will be open for 48 hours and the results will be polled to form a consensus and posted the next week.

So let's meet the two films for the week and analyze each pro and con.

Hexed

The film is directed by Fawn Veerasunthorn (Wish) and Jason Hand and written by Jared Bush (the Zootopia films and Encanto), Dana Ledoux Miller (Moana 2 and the Moana remake) and Jon Robin Baitz (All's Fair, Grotesquerie, Doctor Odyssey). It stars the voices of Hailee Steinfeld, Rashida Jones, Jodie Foster, Walton Goggins, Tracey Ullman, Stephen Fry, Henry Winkler, Dan Stevens, Brett Gelman, and Samson Kayo. The film follows a teen girl named Billie Doe, who discovers magical powers that take her from suburbia into Hexe, the world of witches.

Focker-In-Law

The film is written and directed by John Hamburg (Along Came Polly, I Love You, Man, Why Him? and Me Time) from a story by Hamburg, Ilana Glazer, and Austen Earl. It is the fourth installment in the Fockers film series, and stars Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Ariana Grande, Owen Wilson, Blythe Danner, Teri Polo, Skyler Gisondo, Beanie Feldstein, and Eduardo Franco. The story focuses on Greg and Pam Focker's now-grown son, Henry, who wants to propose marriage to a strong-willed woman whom his family believes is a complete mismatch.

Now that you met this week's new releases, let's look at some pros and cons.

PROS

• Hexed hopes to position itself as the main family attraction, not only for November, but for the holidays. The past months have been very weak for animation, and audiences will be starving for content, and it could benefit if Cat in the Hat doesn't meet expectations earlier that month. With the magic element and a marketing campaign yet to begin, there's time for Disney to pivot this into a must-see event, and it's sporting a great resume of actors attached to the film.

• The Fockers franchise is one of the biggest comedy franchises, with so many iconic moments ("I have nipples Greg, can you milk me?"). The three films earned a combined $1.16 billion worldwide, and Meet the Fockers ($522 million) was at one point the 32nd biggest film ever. Universal and Paramount hope that the 16-year gap can help rebuild nostalgia, as time heals scars and bad memories from the latest films. The key is getting all main characters back, but also bringing in Ariana Grande, who had massive success with the Wicked films. And so far, she looks like a great match in the film, earning the biggest praise from the trailers. And maybe audiences will be curious to see the roles reversed, with Stiller now playing De Niro's part in the original Meet the Parents. Given how successful Scary Movie was in the summer despite bad reviews, it shows there's still life for comedies in theaters.

CONS

• Disney is a giant in terms of animation, but its original slate has been lacking lately. Since the pandemic began, they've had mixed results on the Thanksgiving weekend, with only their sequels hitting big, Encanto performing modestly at best, and Strange World and Wish massively flopping. Not a single original film cracked $100 million domestically. This is focusing just on WDAS, but even at Pixar it's already seeing some struggles with their original stuff. And Hexed seems like it's having a severe case of "been there, done that": despite trying to sell a visually incredible world, it feels like a story told so many times with very little of substance, and its humor has been so-so for now. There is still time to push the campaign, but Disney hasn't done a great job in selling a "completely original" take on the story. While it has a great acting talent, the crew leaves so much to be desired with the exception of writer Jared Bush; most of the titles in their resume earned mixed-to-negative reception, and one of the directors also helmed Wish. So can the film truly guarantee quality? Or most importantly, will it even open at #1? Remember how Disney banked hard on Wish, only to open in third place behind the prior Hunger Games film? Will history repeat? And with Dunesday coming to destroy everything in its path next month, it's unlikely to benefit from late holiday legs.

• The Fockers franchise was highly successful, but it doesn't have a lot of good will left in the tank, judging by the reception of the second and third film. The latter in particular was one of the worst received films of 2010, and despite being successful, it earned less than the prior films and halted the franchise. The comedy landscape has changed since the franchise left, and who knows if it maintained that popularity with younger audiences like Scary Movie did. It's not like Stiller and De Niro have strong box office receipts lately; De Niro has been in mostly panned films besides his collaborations with Scorsese, and Stiller left theatrical releases after the disaster of Zoolander 2 (though he kept himself busy by directing shows like Severance). It hopes to mitigate this by adding Grande to the mix, but it's still a case of "is this franchise still relevant in 2026?" and "will people sit through a new version of Meet the Parents with Stiller now playing De Niro?"

And here's the past results.

Next week, we're predicting Violent Night 2, Behemoth! and The Debut. The latter actually debuts the week afterwards, but as it's the only new release, we're moving it up.

REMINDER: This is the Thanksgiving weekend, and both films will premiere on Wednesday. So you have to predict both the 5-day and 3-day debut.

So what are your predictions for these films?