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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Weekend Estimates by February Blahs Klady

Weekend Estimates 219 9-45a 651w

Lego Batman stepped up a bit from Friday estimates, but it’s fallen even further behind The Lego Movie in that comparison. Odd, but that is the nature of a phenom like the first Lego film.

Fifty Shades Darker didn’t have a drop-off in the 60s, but that is more a function of where it started than its support. It dropped (slightly) more than the second weekend of Ghostbusters did last summer after the two films had $46m openings. That said, Darker does have a strong enough base that it will (obviously) be over $100 million domestic and it is reporting $187m international already. So it is already pretty close to profit in theatrical, even with marketing costs. Expect a tighter, more publicity-heavy campaign for the final film of the trio, with a cut in marketing spending to maximize profitability for an already sold and clearly defined audience, a la Twilight.

The Great Wall did mediocre business. Not an outright disaster. Not the success that some are “reporting” based on Chinese grosses. The film will lose a nice chunk of money for Wanda. But not enough to matter.

John Wick: Chapter 2 dropped almost the same amount as weekend two of the original, though from a much higher launch. So it is well past the original’s gross ($43m) already and has a good chance of passing the worldwide gross of the original with domestic alone ($89m). The movie likely cost twice as much, based on the very cheap first film, but still, nicely profitable and see you at the Wick 3 opening next summer. (Will they get Sandy Bullock for that one?)

Speaking of profitable and Lionsgate, La La Land is looking like the most profitable non-franchise film ever for the indie studio that is married to Summit. It will end up the sixth-highest grossing film (domestic and worldwide) for the distributor, topped only by Twilight and Hunger Games films. The only other LGF films within box office range, the Divergent series and Expendables, were a lot more expensive.

Hidden Figures is a huge hit for Fox as well. Domestically, it is one of the studio’s 5 biggest grossers of the last three years, including two DreamWorks Animation films (which shouldn’t really count, as Fox only distributes).

Moonlight is not likely to catch up to The Witch or Ex Machina domestically for A24’s all-time best grosser, but at just $4 million behind, it has been an enormous success.

And don’t forget that Manchester By The Sea has more than doubled the gross of any film previously released by Roadside Attractions, with $46m. It is also a giant leap for Amazon Studios, the company that owns distribution rights, more than tripling their previous highest grosser, Love & Friendship. Given the amount of cash Amazon has, I would say that buying Roadside outright for some scores of million and letting the current team run all their theatrical distribution (with Bob Berney as a top-paid consultant) and to have a 5 film release line-up of their own choosing each year would be a win for both sides.

Fist Fight seemed like an easy sell. Ice Cube opens. Charlie Day is a popular supporting comedian. Kinda funny premise. But something went wrong on the way to the multiplex and only Lottery Ticket opened worse for a movie starring Ice Cube in the last decade. My theory is that the pitch was surprisingly unclear. We all got that Ice Cube wants to kick Charlie Day’s butt. But why? Does it make sense? What is the movie? Clearing up a misunderstanding? Day’s character becoming Rocky? What’s funny about Cube’s rage? The ads focus on a few jokes, but leave one wondering what the hell the movie is? And even if they wanted to sell something the movie is not, they needed more clarity.

A Cure For Wellness was aggressively unclear. I am a Dane DeHaan fan, but he isn’t Johnny Depp. You have to sell the movie, whatever the hell it is. I don’t think the new regime at Fox was too interested in killing themselves to save this one. Stacey Snider was at DreamWorks, but not for the Gore Verbinski era there. I believe Verbinski is massively talented. But if he wants to become “the Pirates king” again, he needs some better IP. James Mangold’s Logan is exactly the kind of movie he could kill for Fox or another studio. A real studio budget… but not a crazy one. Pushing expectations. Getting back to making things work when you don’t have every option on earth for the world’s most dramatic stunts or images.

Todos Queremos A Alguien is another Lionsgate effort to crack the Spanish-language market in America. Bless them for that. Highly under-served. 353 screens. Modest success. (Also known as Everybody Loves Somebody.)

2017 Oscar Shorts has become a nice annual event for Shorts International and Magnolia. $1.6 million for a shorts program is nothing to sneeze at. I don’t know how much of this money gets back to the filmmakers, but that could be nice too.

BP bo list 2017-02-19 at 11.05.02 AM

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One Response to “Weekend Estimates by February Blahs Klady”

  1. EtGuild2 says:

    And China has warcrafted XXX out of danger and probably slightly into the black. Pic is headed to $350 million+ which should make it fine even if that number is strongly inflated.

    I really want to say the phrase “XXX: THE RETURN OF XANDER CAGE is Paramount Pictures’ biggest worldwide hit since TERMINATOR: GENISYS!,” but MI5 came out right after T:G, sadly.

The Hot Blog

Leonard Klady's Friday Estimates
Friday Screens % Chg Cume
Title Gross Thtr % Chgn Cume
Venom 33 4250 NEW 33
A Star is Born 15.7 3686 NEW 15.7
Smallfoot 3.5 4131 -46% 31.3
Night School 3.5 3019 -63% 37.9
The House Wirh a Clock in its Walls 1.8 3463 -43% 49.5
A Simple Favor 1 2408 -50% 46.6
The Nun 0.75 2264 -52% 111.5
Hell Fest 0.6 2297 -70% 7.4
Crazy Rich Asians 0.6 1466 -51% 167.6
The Predator 0.25 1643 -77% 49.3
Also Debuting
The Hate U Give 0.17 36
Shine 85,600 609
Exes Baggage 75,900 62
NOTA 71,300 138
96 61,600 62
Andhadhun 55,000 54
Afsar 45,400 33
Project Gutenberg 36,000 17
Love Yatri 22,300 41
Hello, Mrs. Money 22,200 37
Studio 54 5,300 1
Loving Pablo 4,200 15
3-Day Estimates Weekend % Chg Cume
No Good Dead 24.4 (11,230) NEW 24.4
Dolphin Tale 2 16.6 (4,540) NEW 16.6
Guardians of the Galaxy 7.9 (2,550) -23% 305.8
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4.8 (1,630) -26% 181.1
The Drop 4.4 (5,480) NEW 4.4
Let's Be Cops 4.3 (1,570) -22% 73
If I Stay 4.0 (1,320) -28% 44.9
The November Man 2.8 (1,030) -36% 22.5
The Giver 2.5 (1,120) -26% 41.2
The Hundred-Foot Journey 2.5 (1,270) -21% 49.4