Weekend Box Office Preview: Ebenezer and How to Rob a Bank Open Against Godzilla Minus Zero
Two new releases open into the second weekend of the record-setting Godzilla Minus Zero. What the trade forecasts say, and what the opening numbers would have to be to count as a win.
Saturday, November 14, 2026/2 min read
Cinemas have two new releases this weekend and one holdover with a record to defend. Paramount opens Ebenezer, a darker retelling of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and Amazon MGM opens the heist thriller How to Rob a Bank, while GKIDS' Godzilla Minus Zero enters its second weekend. This is a preview as it stood on Saturday morning; no Friday figures had been published when it was written.
The forecasts for the newcomers are modest. TheWrap reported on 11 November that Ti West's film is tracking for a domestic opening of around $20 million, with a reported net budget of $38 million and a reported $50 million marketing spend. SlashFilm's 3 November piece cited Box Office Theory for a range of $17 million to $24 million. TheWrap put How to Rob a Bank in the low teens of millions.
What does Ebenezer need to open to?
On a $38 million reported net budget, an opening near $20 million would be a respectable start rather than a breakout, and holiday-season films live on their legs. SlashFilm notes that Ti West's earlier horror films made about $22 million in total, and the film's horror-leaning marketing is compared by SlashFilm with recent horror hits.
The calendar helps and hurts at once. The next big opener, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, arrives on 20 November, so Ebenezer has this weekend and the Thanksgiving stretch to build before it loses screens.
How big was Godzilla Minus Zero's opening, and what happens now?
The Associated Press, in a report on 8 November, said the film's estimated $31.6 million debut set a record for a foreign-language film in North America, ahead of the $20.5 million opening of The Cat in the Hat in second and the .3 million of Drummer Boy in third. The final weekend figure was lower: The Numbers lists the opening weekend at $30,637,997 and a domestic total of about $40.6 million through Thursday 12 November, from 3,254 theatres at the start.
The second weekend is the test, and The Numbers' latest daily figure, $1.43 million for Thursday 12 November, shows the film still drawing audiences into its second week. SlashFilm expected it to top the box office on its opening weekend, and TheWrap described it as buzzy and currently drawing audiences. How steep the second-weekend fall is will say whether a record debut was a spike or the start of a long run.
What to watch on Sunday
Studios publish estimates on Sunday morning, with actuals on Monday, and the two often differ, as the Godzilla opening just showed. The ranking among the three films is what the industry will talk about. The following weekend, when a major franchise film arrives, will reset the conversation.
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