Friday Estimates by Ho Ho Klady
This morning, Day 9 of Rogue One will hit the opening weekend gross of Episode 7.
There are few things in film as rare as an animated opening in December, happening only 7 times in the history of animated films that would gross $10 million-plus total… except an animated opening on Christmas weekend, which has happened only once before (again, in films grossing $10m+ domestic in total). And who did it that only other time? Universal. With Balto, in 1995.
So Sing is a freak! And its success will be hazy for the next few weeks. The 3-day will be skewed by the holiday. And the international, which has been a huge part of Illumination’s box office game, will not be fully expressed for a while.
That said, the closest comp I see is the original Alvin & The Chipmunks… which is a weak match. But a $13.3m opening Friday in December… earlier and this is a Wednesday opening, but, trying. That film did about $75m in the 11 days of the holiday window that year. Sing will probably do more like $100 million. But it will be looking for a strong January to get it up to the $200 million range to which Illumination has gotten accustomed.
It’s hard to say how bad the situation is for Passengers. The film seems to have already used up any “must see” opportunity. Today is a wild card, as Christmas Eve is usually weak, but it’s a Saturday and most of the NFL line-up is today. So, the question of whether this 3-day can rise to Jennifer Lawrence’s worst wide opening, $12.3m for House at the End of The Street is on the table. Of course, the 5-day gross will be higher than that.
This is Lawrence’s third trip to a big December release. American Hustle did a week in exclusive before going wide the weekend before the holiday and scoring a $19.1m 3-day on expansion. Joy opened on Christmas Day last year and did $17m in its first 3 days.
So Sony will look to the rest of the world to clean up this mess. And it may well do so. Movie stars and pretty images often sell “over there.”
More to come…
Was the Passengers (SPOILERS follow) script a lot better in 2007? I’ve come across a few stories suggesting that the original screenplay is a lot stronger, but maybe someone knows more about it or even read it. I like Lawrence and Pratt but they have no chemistry and I was bored silly for most of the running time. The pool scene is pretty nifty, and some of the visuals are great, but the story is crap, especially once we have to repeatedly see what a manly man he is so he can save them and redeem himself and get her love back. Ugh. And I love how Fishburne’s character awakens just so he can give them a ton of useful information and then die. It’s a pretty terrible movie. I prefer Collateral Beauty (my mom wanted to see it), which is also bad but is much shorter and boats a stellar cast.
I also saw Nocturnal Animals and Elle. I really liked Nocturnal Animals. Great cast, looks amazing. I was pretty mesmerized by it. Shannon and Taylor-Johnson are superb and keep it interesting. Some really suspenseful moments. I like Ford’s two films a lot. Elle I’m still processing. Huppert is incredible and it’s certainly not dull. Pretty twisted, which I guess I expected.
Welp! So much for my admonishment of other studios for scurrying away from ROGUE ONE. What a mess, though to be fair, the wide movies are pretty much crap this year.
I guess I’m in the minority re: “Passengers.”
SPOILERS
Yeah, I was expecting them to wake up at the same time (that’s certainly what the trailer suggested), but Pratt awakening Lawrence after a year of mooning over her wasn’t a deal-breaker for me.
I thought it sort of came undone after Fishbone dies, and would have definitely preferred a different ending: maybe Pratt convincing Lawrence to go back to sleep (which she does amidst their commingled tears), and the last shot would be of him expiring–as a very old man–next to her pod where she’s still young and still sleeping?
But I liked it overall.
(Did it really cost $150-million, though? Kind of hard to believe.)
I’ve read $110 million and $120 million for the budget. $30-$40 million just for the two leads right? Him waking her up wasn’t a deal-breaker for me either. It’s that they have no chemistry whatsoever, and that the movie strains itself making sure we see what a manly man he is as he saves their lives and redeems himself.
“Welp! So much for my admonishment of other studios for scurrying away from ROGUE ONE. What a mess, though to be fair, the wide movies are pretty much crap this year.”
Rogue One is also weaker than I would have expected – it seems to have typical legs of a comic book movie moreso than a Star Wars film at this point.
Agreed, though because of all the aforementioned weirdness with Christmas on a Sunday, Deadline is predicting $38 million for ROGUE ONE on Monday. That seems a bit crazy to me….but would take its cume to being in line with what you’d expect from SW.
The problem with Passengers in a nutshell is that there’s no recovering from “He murdered me.”
“Agreed, though because of all the aforementioned weirdness with Christmas on a Sunday, Deadline is predicting $38 million for ROGUE ONE on Monday.”
That would mean that Rogue One would gross almost as much on its second Monday as The Force Awakens did on its FIRST Monday….seems a bit too optimistic.
“Today is a wild card, as Christmas Eve is usually weak, but it’s a Saturday, but most of the NFL line-up is today.”
Totally not movie related but it’s Christmas, forgive me. I’m a lifelong Dolphin’s fan like David. How about that game today, Dave? Something special. Glad I skipped Rogue One again to watch.
You didn’t think they had chemistry, SB? I thought Lawrence and Pratt were just fine together. Of course, Lawrence’s Ryan Gosling (to her Emma Stone) remains Bradley Cooper.
Would love to see them reteamed in something a tad lighter, but nobody really does romantic comedies anymore, do they?
Speaking of comedies (and a J-Law BFF), was anyone else horrified by the “Snatched” trailer?
I’m a huge Schumer fan (“Trainwreck” was #2 on my best list last year), but this looks brutally awful. Like it’s deliberately trying to make a case for Schumer only starring in movies that she writes.
I’ve generally liked Jonathan Levine’s stuff (“50/50” was woefully underrated), so I’m hoping this is just the case of a really lousy trailer.
(And don’t get me started on poor Goldie Hawn. Yikes!)
“Movie stars and pretty images often sell “over there.” Wow. As someone who lives ‘over there’ (in Venezuela) that’s pretty offensive. Coming from the country that elected Donald Trump as President and Commander in Chief of its Army that’s quite a comment.
I felt no sparks between them whatsoever Movieman. None. The circumstances of how they meet probably doesn’t help, and since the first 30 minutes is just Pratt, the romance is rushed. It doesn’t work.
Oh well, SB. The box-office gods have spoken, and I’m clearly in the minority.
On a related note, did anyone else think the blonder-than-usual J-Law looked spookily like Ivanka Trump at times?
And was it my imagination, or did Pratt at his hairiest (pre-J. Law) resemble the Yosemite Sam-era Jeff Bridges?
I still love them both, but at this point it seems highly unlikely that Pratt will ever find a screen role as good as Andy Dwyer. (Although some will probably opine that his “GOTG” role is precisely that.)
And Lawrence should continue to make a point of working with David
O. Russell as often as possible. (Yes, I’m a “Joy” fan.)
“I’ve generally liked Jonathan Levine’s stuff (“50/50″ was woefully underrated)”
Preach.
So was The Night Before. It’s a new Christmas staple for me. Michael Shannon kills. And Levine brings out the best in Seth Rogen.
Rogue One, is what happens, when you take a really interesting movie, and execs turn it into a gritfest. If the movie they sold, was actually in theaters. They’d be making bank right now, but Bob Iger wants to make Internet commentors happy. This leads to a movie, that just has shit repeat business, and a most definite ceiling.
Merry Xmas and a Happy Chanukah to you all!
Yes, “The Night Before” was indeed swell, Bill.
Definitely my favorite Yule-themed movie in recent years.
(Heck, I even like “The Wackness.”)
I also really like Levine. 50/50 is just wonderful. I also like All the Boys Love Mandy Lane a lot. Haven’t seen The Wackness. Movieman I love Lawrence and also like Joy a lot. Pratt is a very charismatic actor. I just wasn’t feeling it, despite their best efforts, as the script does neither one any favors at all. I agree with you about him waking her up not being a deal-breaker. Just wish there was more to it than manly Jim saves Aurora after that point. But there isn’t. I think it’s interesting that (according to Deadline) Lawrence loved the end result so much she did regional press, which apparently is rare for an A-lister. Did it test well? I’m still curious to know how different the 2007 script is.
I second JS. Merry Xmas and Happy Chanukah everyone.
“If the movie they sold, was actually in theatres. They’d be making bank right now.”
Let’s see, opened to $155m, so about $24m less than Civil War but after 8 days is about $2m ahead, and about to enter the most lucrative week of box office figures where every day is like a weekend.
Based on its trajectory it’s highly likely to be the #1 movie of the year domestically.
Doing this with an all new cast of characters and will outgross every other Star Wars movie except The Force Awakens. Something Fantastic Beast has been unable to do within its own franchise.
JS you’re a funny guy. Keep those rib ticklers coming.
Bulldog, it’s not making 38 million tomorrow. It’s going to make money, but doing what they did. It cost them money. Appeasing angry Gen Xers was going to cost them money eventually, and this will leave money on the table.
Also, don’t fucking condescend to me, when you write goofy shit, about it out grossing every star wars film except TFA. Yes. Let’s act like A New Hope, isn’t in the real top three all-time, and act like only TFA made real money. Ha ha.
And a whole new cast of characters, in a prequel to the third biggest film in the history of the business. Yeah. They could have Bothans in this, and still make bank.
Again, the movie they sold, isn’t the movie in theaters. That movie, would make two billion. When this one doesn’t beat civil war, because most people don’t need dead characters and Darth Vader murder porn. I’ll try not to laugh, but I could be wrong. It happens. Guess what though? I wouldn’t be a dick on a blog, on Xmas. Decorum, man. Decorum!
Again, everything about what they cut, seems a lot more interesting than what we got. Look at those trailers. They alone, are a better fucking Star Wars film!
Mom, JS is off his meds again.
Talk about an overreaction to simply calling you out on your bullshit statement. Just because you don’t like a movie does not negate its box office success.
Calling me a dick also doesn’t negate the utter stupidity of your stating opinion like it’s some sort of fact.
Fact: It’s $2m ahead of Civil War after 8 days.
Not Fact: Civil War did not make $38m on its 2nd Saturday.
Fact: Rogue will fall behind CW on the 9th day of release because Christmas Eve is traditionally one of the worst days for box office.
Not Fact: It cost them money. That’s a fucking opinion. As well as everything else in your post.
You have every right to your opinion about the movie but no one even remotely sane expected or predicted this to do TFA or even close to it numbers. Like Fantastic Beasts, it was an unpredictable entity as much as a successful franchise can be. Sure everyone knew it would make coin, but how much was always all over the place.
As for “the real top three” well you never pull that metric out of your ass when you’re discussing Marvel movies so either stick with actual dollars or concede that Civil War sucks the dick of Jurassic Park: The Lost World or even Attack of the Clones when adjusted for inflation.
As for condescending to you, well I wasn’t, so the fact that you felt that speaks to your insecurities.
And as for decorum, well I called you funny and you went all nuclear, so I think as far as being a dick on a blog, you got that covered.
Merry Christmas JS.
Bulldog, take your holiday aggression out somewhere else. I didn’t post anything as FACT. I posted it as OPINION, because I can look at international box office, and see it’s not killing it. Dave brought this up last year about TFA, that Star Wars doesn’t mean as much to them over there, as it does to us right here. That’s where my conjecture is coming from; but please, feel free to continue to be a fucking child over someone, HAVING A DIFFERENT OPINION ABOUT A MOVIE, AND IT’S FINANCIAL FUTURE!
Seriously. It’s funny, that one man’s opinion pisses you off this fucking much, so fucking ignore it. Stop making shitty old white dude jokes about mental illness, and fucking ignore me like I will you.
JS if anyone compares the tone of our posts I think there is no doubt who is being aggressive and pissed off. (That would be you.) I swear, you’re like the Trump supporter section of the Hot Blog.
Now I would be the SECOND person to compare JS’ rhetoric to a “Trump supporter” at this point hmmmm. 😉
However I kind of disagree with both of you – Rogue One is clearly fading faster than The Force Awakens domestically and is significantly weaker (50% so far per Deadline) overseas so we’re looking at probably $450 to $475 million domestic and just under a billion worldwide….disappointing numbers compared to TFA last year? Yes but not really the fairest comparison either considering that TFA was a very RARE once-every-five-to-ten-years EVENT where the marketing clicked perfectly, the reviews were super-praiseworthy, there was ZERO bad press ahead of release, and there had been a pent-up ten year demand for a new Star Wars movie. You look at this as a Iron Man 3 vs. The Avengers, The Hobbit vs. Return of the King, or even Fantastic Beasts vs. Deathly Hollows Part II….it’s looking pretty solid actually.
However there is NO way Disney/Lucasfilm spent less than $300 million on this thing…not when they re-shot more than FORTY PERCENT of it more than halfway through productions – that’s still a ton of profit but much less than just about any other Star Wars film ever released theatrically. Is that what Disney was hoping for? Probably not.
But JS, I’m not buying that they left “money on the table” with those reshoots either. From what I have read, they had close to a three hour cut that was MUCH grittier and more dour….kind of along the lines of what Edwards did with Godzilla (2014) not too long ago.
SPOILER ALERT
Whether they allowed most or any of those main characters to live in the end, I don’t think it would have made one dollar’s difference at the box office. To make those characters actually MATTER, they probably needed at least a half hour of Edwards’ original runtime to actually give them more to do and that was always the problem – I haven’t read or seen one positive OR negative review that expressed disappointment with ANY character dying besides Donnie Yen’s….sorry man, Felicity Jones’ character as written was apparently never very likable and one of the best cuts I think they made was that god-awful smarmy “This is a rebellion….I rebel!” line that was so heavily featured in all of the early marketing.
Disney/Lucasfilm is still running a business for better or worse and I’m guessing they hired Gilroy to come in and fix things NOT to make it more “gritty” or “Gen-X friendly” like you’re saying but just to prevent their first true Star Wars spin-off from being a drearier three hour slog to sit through whether the main characters survived or not…and I can’t blame them for that even if much of the film ended up feeling quite choppy for the first half. It was pretty much the same thing with Suicide Squad earlier this year….the cuts weren’t pretty but the result was probably still tighter and more commercial.