Wild Horse Nine Holds Eighth as Screens Nearly Double

Wild Horse Nine doesn't have much horsepower in its second weekend, and the numbers show exactly where it went. The Martin McDonagh film expanded from 1,100 domestic theaters to 2,175 in week two, an addition of 1,075 screens, and its projected three-day gross still fell 22 percent to $4.6 million, per Deadline figures reported by ScreenRant. It holds eighth place on the domestic chart, the same position it opened in.

The film stars John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as two fictional CIA officers taking part in the real operation to destabilize the government of Chile in 1973. It opened on November 6, 2026, at number eight with $5.9 million from those 1,100 theaters, a debut built on strong per-screen demand rather than wide availability. The expansion was the distributor's bet that the demand would travel. It didn't, at least not at the same density.

The per-screen math tells the story cleanly. In week one, Wild Horse Nine averaged $5,369 per theater. In week two, across nearly twice as many screens, the average fell to $2,115. A 22 percent total decline on a release that almost doubled its footprint means the new locations performed far below the original ones, which is the standard pattern for a platform release that opens in its strongest markets first and then meets the rest of the country.

Context keeps the result out of flop territory. The film has grossed $28 million worldwide after 10 days in theaters against a reported production budget of roughly $15 million. ScreenRant's estimate puts the theatrical breakeven point near $37.5 million worldwide, using the rough rule that a film needs about two and a half times its budget once exhibitors take their share and marketing is counted. At its current pace, the film can plausibly get there, and a 22 percent second-weekend drop is, on its own, a mild hold for a wide release.

The weekend around it was louder. Johnny Depp's Ebenezer opened at number one in North America, and the season's bigger titles are pulling the oxygen toward the top of the chart. A two-hour historical drama about a 1973 covert operation, running 118 minutes and selling craft over spectacle, was never going to win that fight. Its economics were set at the budget line, not the chart position, and $15 million buys a production the patience that a $60 million opening has to earn back in a single weekend.

What to watch next is the third weekend's screen count. Distributors trim theaters fast when per-screen averages fall this far, and a steep trim would cap the film's domestic run near its current level. A gentler cut, helped by awards-season attention for McDonagh, Malkovich and Rockwell, would let the slow accumulation continue. Either way, the film's verdict is already mostly written: not a breakout, not a write-off, and a clean demonstration that doubling the screens doesn't double the audience.

There's a footnote in the drop itself. If the projected 22 percent decline holds when final figures land, ScreenRant notes it would tie the film with 1982's Poltergeist and 1994's 8 Seconds for the 517th smallest second-weekend drop on record for a film that opened on 600 screens or more. That's a trivia ranking, not a business result, but it underlines the split in this release: the audience that showed up stayed, and the problem was only ever how many theaters were asked to find one.