Winning a weekend at the box office isn’t easy. It typically takes star power, a good trailer, an effective marketing campaign and sometimes strong reviews. Winning multiple weekends at the box office almost always requires word of mouth. After the first weekend, most people who were naturally predisposed to see the movie have already gone. That means to win again, you need some of those same people to return, and you need a whole bunch of people on the fence to commit.
The best way to get those commitments is through word of mouth. You need people going to see the movie, then running home and telling their friends and family they need to go too. If those recommendations are strong enough, you can pick up that second weekend. Now and again, however, the people originally on the fence, who were talked into going the second weekend, will love the movie enough to then tell their friends, and in that perfect storm, you can end up with a film that sits at the top of the box office for a month, sometimes even much longer, as more and more casuals make a rare trip to the theater.
