Paramount hopes to end their losing streak this weekend with A Quiet Place – a new horror thriller that looks poised for a strong opening of more than $30 million. Meanwhile, Ready Player One will likely take second, and Blockers hopes to approach $20 million.

A Quiet Place is the rare film that has pretty much everything going for it; a low budget of $17 million, nearly universal critical praise, plenty of festival buzz, a massive marketing campaign, and a lack of genre competition. The last successful horror film with actually good reviews was It, all the way back in September. Because of that, hype has been off the charts for the creature feature. Insidious: The Last Key was the last hit horror movie of 2018, which managed to do $29 million despite awful reviews and a January release date. At this point, there’s almost no way A Quiet Place opens below that.

The question is, just how high can it go? The two biggest comparisons are last years Split and Get Out, both of which had huge openings and surprisingly strong legs (namely Get Out, which managed a more than 5x multiplier). An opening in between those two would get A Quiet Place to around $36.5 million – a number that seems like a great target. This is also big news for Paramount, who hasn’t had a legitimate success since Arrival back in November 2016.

The other biggest release this weekend is Blockers, a raunchy R rated comedy with reviews that are far better than anyone expected. An early screening at SXSW helped get the ball rolling, and advertising has been building since then. The last successful R rated comedy was Game Night, which is essentially out of theaters at this point. It has the kind of comedy premise that should do well at appealing to both younger and older audiences (a la Neighbors), as well as a cheap $21 million budget that will keep it from breaking the bank. The only big problem is that its opening alongside A Quiet Place, which carries a more teen-friendly PG-13 rating as opposed to the R rating for Blockers. An opening in the high teens looks probable.

Following a solid 4 day opening, Ready Player One aims to take in around $21 million for the weekend, while two other newcomers (The Miracle Season and Chappaquiddick) shoot for very low single digit openings.

Predictions

A Quiet Place – $37 million Ready Player One – $21 million Blockers – $18 million Black Panther – $7.5 million Acrimony – $7 million

Chappaquiddick – $3 million

The Miracle Season – $2.1M