How Weekend Box Office Estimates Give Way to Monday Actuals

Each weekend, studio estimates are reported on Sunday morning. The following day, those figures are replaced with actual receipts. The two sets can differ, so a Sunday chart and a Monday chart may show different totals for the same films.

This explainer covers how the two stages fit together, how far they have diverged in published research, and how to read a current chart. It also explains the labels, because an estimate and an actual are not the same kind of number.

The Weekend Reporting Timeline

The reporting cycle runs in a fixed order. Friday and Saturday receipts come first, and the weekend chart is built around them. Sunday morning brings the studio estimates, which add a projection for Sunday. Monday afternoon brings the actuals, and later in the week late-reported grosses can be added.

Each stage answers the same question with a different amount of data. The Sunday figure is an estimate of the weekend's receipts. The Monday figure reflects actual receipts. Readers who compare a Sunday report with a Monday chart are looking at two versions of the same weekend.

What the Sunday Estimate Contains

Box Office Mojo says studio weekend estimates generally appear between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Pacific Time on Sunday. Each estimate combines estimated receipts for Friday and Saturday with a projection for Sunday, a day that is not finished when the figure goes out.

That projection is one reason the two stages can differ. Part of the total is a forecast, so a Sunday figure can differ from the total that follows on Monday. Because the estimate comes out before the Monday report, press coverage is written in the gap between them.

Estimates do not cover every film in theaters. Box Office Mojo says its weekend charts show at least the top 12 films, plus some titles further down the list. Lower-ranked releases are not always included in the estimates.

When Monday Actuals Replace the Estimates

Actual receipts are posted on Monday afternoon, generally after 1 p.m. Pacific Time, according to Box Office Mojo. The actuals cover most of the films still playing, not only the leaders on the Sunday chart.

The chart can change after that first update. Box Office Mojo says it may be revised on Monday night or later in the week to include grosses reported late. A weekend total can therefore keep moving after the Monday numbers appear.

The weekend itself runs from Friday through Sunday unless a chart notes otherwise. The weekly chart follows its own schedule. Box Office Mojo says it is posted on Friday afternoon and covers the prior week, so the weekly totals arrive on a different day from the weekend figures.

Historical data is also searchable. Box Office Mojo says its weekend data runs from 1982 to the present, through a yearly index and an index by week number.

How Far Opening Weekends Have Diverged

A Stanford Graduate School of Business study by Neil Malhotra and Edmund Helmer examined 1,064 films that opened between 2003 and 2010 in at least 1,000 theaters. It compared the Sunday estimates for each film's opening weekend with the Monday actuals.

The average overstatement was 6.38 percent. Sony, Rogue and Summit regularly overstated their figures by more than 7.9 percent, according to the study.

The gap was substantially higher on opening weekends. The study also links it to competition at the top of the chart. Overstatement rises by about 0.1 percent for each million-dollar narrowing of the gap between the top two films, and the authors point to the media coverage that first place receives.

Because the study covers releases through 2010, its figures describe that period.

What the Authors Say Explains the Gap

The authors attribute part of the gap to studio forecasting models that tend to be optimistic. They also suggest the pattern may reflect strategic behavior; the incentive to generate positive word of mouth is greatest in the first weekend of release.

The study does not describe the gap as fraud. Malhotra has called the finding an empirical regularity, and says the goal is to prompt further discussion in the media and the film industry.

One example from 2010 shows the scale. CBS Films estimated $2.14 million for Extraordinary Measures, while actual receipts were $1.15 million. The estimate was 86 percent higher than the actual receipts.

The Sunday figure is therefore an early count with a projection built in. The study shows how far such a figure has moved from the Monday total in the past.

Comscore and Reading a 2026 Weekend Chart

Comscore has published weekend box office estimates, both domestic and worldwide. Its release for the weekend of Jan. 12, 2020, was issued Jan. 13, based on data collected as of Sunday, and calls the company the industry leader in worldwide box office measurement.

Box Office Mojo's chart for the weekend of June 5 to 7, 2026, is headed Weekend Estimates. Scary Movie led with $54,336,626, followed by Masters of the Universe at $29,439,929 and Backrooms at $26,256,335.

A figure marked as an estimate is the early count for that weekend, and a later actual may replace it. Readers comparing those numbers with later reports should note which stage each figure comes from and when it was published.