Box Office Tight Race: GOAT and Wuthering Heights Vie for No.1 as Elvis Concert Dazzles

Lead

This weekend’s North American box office is headed for a close finish, with Sony Pictures Animation’s GOAT and Warner Bros.’ Wuthering Heights both projected to earn roughly $13 million to $15 million and battle for the top spot. Wuthering Heights arrives off a strong Valentine’s Day/President’s Day frame and an $83 million global launch; GOAT opened to $35 million domestically across the four-day earlier. New releases show a mixed picture: Lionsgate’s faith-based sequel I Can Only Imagine 2 looks to place third, while Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis concert film has drawn strong notices in a limited IMAX debut. Several holdovers and underperforming newcomers round out a weekend of clear winners and notable losers.

Key Takeaways

• Wuthering Heights and GOAT are each forecasted to take about $13–$15 million this weekend, vying for the No. 1 domestic slot.
• Wuthering Heights previously earned $32.8 million (three-day) and $37.5 million (four-day) over the Valentine’s/President’s Day frame and opened to $45.5 million overseas for an $83 million global start.
• Warner projects Wuthering Heights could finish the weekend near a $150 million worldwide total.
• GOAT opened to $35 million (four-day) and $26 million (three-day) last weekend in North America and is playing in about 3,842 theaters domestically.
• I Can Only Imagine 2 is estimated at $8–$9 million and earned an A+ CinemaScore, roughly half the opening of the 2018 original.
• Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert is on track for roughly $3.2 million in a limited IMAX launch (325 screens) before a planned wider roll-out.
• How to Make a Killing is estimated at $3.0–$3.5 million from 1,625 locations; Psycho Killer is facing a weak debut near $1.4–$1.6 million from 1,100 theaters with a 0% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes (21 reviews).
• Zootopia 2 recently passed $400 million domestically and has reached about $1.83 billion worldwide, remaining a major studio milestone.

Background

The current box-office landscape reflects a mix of franchise muscle, adult-oriented dramas, and event cinema. Sony Pictures Animation has benefited from prior hits that established strong family-audience demand, while Wuthering Heights rode a combined Valentine’s Day and President’s Day holiday surge that helped its early totals. Studios increasingly lean on international markets and event releases (concerts, restored footage) to boost totals as domestic attendance patterns remain uneven compared with pre-pandemic years.

Streaming and day-and-date windows have also reshaped distribution strategies, prompting studios to stagger rollouts and emphasize premium formats such as IMAX for event fare. That context helps explain why Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis concert opted for a concentrated IMAX launch to build buzz before a national expansion. At the same time, faith-based and mid-budget films continue to find a reliable audience in theatrical release, exemplified by the original I Can Only Imagine’s 2018 performance.

Main Event

Wuthering Heights enters the weekend with strong momentum from its holiday frame: $32.8 million over three days and $37.5 million for the four-day window, plus $45.5 million overseas from more than 75 territories. Warner Bros. is forecasting that the film will again outpace GOAT at the global box office and could end Sunday with roughly $150 million worldwide. In the U.S., Wuthering Heights is scheduled in about 3,682 theaters and is expected to take in roughly $14 million this weekend.

GOAT, the Sony Pictures Animation holdover, opened to $35 million across the four-day frame and $26 million for the three-day opening last weekend in North America. Playing in approximately 3,842 theaters, the animated title is poised to match Wuthering Heights’ domestic weekend projection even as its international rollout is progressing more slowly. The film represents another success for Sony’s animation slate after hits in the Spider-Verse franchise and KPop: Demon Hunters.

Lionsgate and Kingdom Story’s I Can Only Imagine 2 is projected to land in third place with an $8–$9 million weekend and an A+ CinemaScore from audiences, signaling strong word-of-mouth among its core demographic. However, that start is about half the opening of the 2018 original in the pre-pandemic marketplace, underscoring shifting audience dynamics and the sequel’s more modest reach.

Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert opened in a limited IMAX footprint of 325 screens, drawing positive critical response and audience scores and on track for roughly $3.2 million this weekend ahead of a wider release. The Neon release is built on a painstaking restoration of 59 hours of previously unseen Warner Bros. archive footage, including material discarded from 1970s concert films.

Other new releases are struggling: A24’s How to Make a Killing is estimated at $3.0–$3.5 million from 1,625 theaters after mixed-to-negative reviews, and New Regency’s Psycho Killer is projected to debut at about $1.4–$1.6 million from 1,100 theaters, with a current Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 0% (21 reviews) and a 33% audience rating. These performances highlight the gulf between marketing expectations and critical/audience reception for some adult-targeted releases.

Analysis & Implications

The neck-and-neck projections for GOAT and Wuthering Heights illustrate how narrow margins can determine studio narratives each week. A single percentage point in weekend attendance can shift the top headline, and studios monetize a No. 1 finish for publicity and international positioning. Warner’s public projection of a roughly $150 million global finish for Wuthering Heights is both a confidence play and a signal to international distributors and exhibitors about the title’s ongoing strength.

For Sony, GOAT’s steady domestic showing reaffirms that family animation remains a reliable theatrical category when the product aligns with franchise recognition and quality. However, GOAT’s slower overseas rollout underscores an industry reality: strong domestic openings do not always translate immediately to comparable global revenue, and that gap can limit total lifetime grosses compared with films that open broad internationally from day one.

The performance of faith-based sequels and specialty releases points to a bifurcated marketplace. I Can Only Imagine 2’s A+ CinemaScore suggests dedicated core audiences still drive box-office returns for niche genres, but the sequel’s roughly half-sized start versus the 2018 original indicates reduced overall reach in the current calendar and post-pandemic audience fragmentation. Meanwhile, event formats like Luhrmann’s Elvis concert show how premium engagements (IMAX, restored archival content) can create theatrical demand even for nontraditional theatrical fare.

Underperforming studio fare such as Psycho Killer and How to Make a Killing highlight the ongoing importance of critical reception and platform strategy. Low critic scores—especially a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes—can translate to rapid audience erosion, limiting mid-tier films’ ability to expand. Studios are likely to reassess marketing spend, screen counts, and subsequent platform windows for similar projects based on these outcomes.

Comparison & Data

The table above summarizes weekend estimates, theater counts, and primary distributors to give a snapshot of relative scale. Box-office momentum is sensitive to theater count, format premiuming (IMAX), and weekend-specific holiday windows; those factors help explain why similarly estimated titles can have very different revenue trajectories through their runs.

Reactions & Quotes

“Warner projects Wuthering Heights to finish the weekend near a $150 million worldwide total.”

Warner Bros. (studio projection)

“Audiences awarded I Can Only Imagine 2 an A+ CinemaScore, signaling strong core support.”

Lionsgate / Exhibitor Relations (audience survey)

“Luhrmann’s concert restoration has generated positive early response in IMAX ahead of a broader roll-out.”

Neon (distributor statement)

Unconfirmed

• Whether Wuthering Heights will ultimately outgross GOAT globally remains a projection and is not yet confirmed by final weekend receipts.
• The long-term nationwide box-office impact of EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert after IMAX expansion is unproven until post-expansion weekend totals are reported.
• How much critical reception (e.g., Psycho Killer’s Rotten Tomatoes scores) will affect each film’s multi-week decay rate is uncertain and will depend on audience reactions and marketing adjustments.

Bottom Line

This weekend underscores the fractured but opportunity-rich theatrical marketplace: family animation and adult drama can compete head-to-head for top billing, while event-driven and faith-based releases continue to find distinct paths to audiences. Small differences in theater counts and holiday timing are proving decisive for headline positions, and studios will use the final numbers for positioning and marketing in the coming weeks.

Watch for Monday’s official grosses to resolve the GOAT vs. Wuthering Heights outcome and to clarify how well Elvis in Concert and I Can Only Imagine 2 can sustain momentum. The performances this weekend will shape studio strategies on international rollouts, premium-format emphasis, and the pacing of future releases.

Sources

• The Hollywood Reporter (trade/entertainment reporting)