Weekend Estimates by Shut Down Len
12 Strong opens to $100k more than 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.
Den of Thieves is STX’s #4 opener of their brief all-time, behind the 2 Bad Moms and Valerian… and comps a little behind last year’s January entry, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage and right on top of 2015’s Jack Reacher: Shadow Recruit. In all of these cases, domestic ends up somewhere between $45 million and $55 million.
Unless Paddington 2 finds a second wind, Insidious 2 or next weekend’s Maze Runner 3 will be the top January release of this year… either way, considerably behind top January movies of the last two years and right around the 2015 topper, Taken 3. January and October remain the only months of the year never to have had a $100 million opening.
For clarity’s sake, there has never even been a $45 million January opening, unless you include expansions of December openings, like American Sniper. The Insidious 4 opening is on the low end of the top group for the month… but January should not be an indicator of the year.
The Post is doing… okay. War Horse is a hard comp because it opened over Christmas, but expect their domestic grosses to be similar – around $80m – unless The Post wins Oscar Best Picture in an upset.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is up amongst Lord of the Rings domestic numbers and chasing Pirates 5 and Wonder Woman worldwide. Now, managing the franchise, which is quite pliable compared to most, is the greatest challenge. Repeating the same, only bigger, could mean just one more film with big earning power. heir best bet would be keeping this cast, but changing the “real life” players that are controlling each character “in the game.” The goal is to make it feel the same, but to mine the character surprises that made this one work, pretty much none of which were based on cool CGI.
The Greatest Showman should push La La Land from its place on the all-time domestic grossing musicals chart. This has to be heartening for the already primed Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again. Musicals get slapped… The Greatest Showman won’t come close to a Best Picture nomination… but they can be a surprisingly strong revenue play, even when live-action.
Is $40m domestic for The Commuter a win or a loss? International will tell. Run All Night did $45 million overseas to make it a moneymaker. This one could end up cracking $100m worldwide. Oy.
Forever My Girl is right on the edge of being better off with theatrical than not.
Hostiles was the top per-screen movie for those making over $150k on the weekend… but still, it was only $360k with that $7,370 per-screen on 49. Entertainment Studios has worked hard to make this happen and I am impressed by that effort, especially versu my reserved expectations… but they were too late and not deep-pocketed enough to get into the awards game the film deserves.
Aside from The Post, the highest domestic gross for a Best Picture candidate was Phantom Thread, expanding, with $3.4m and a $3,750 per-screen.
The theatre count and average is wrong for Den of Thieves.
My girlfriend is in Chicago to see Wicked or else we’d be in Aurora watching Phantom Thread. Next weekend, hopefully.
The Jumanji juggernaut astounds me. The IP is a big part of it’s success but The Rock and Kevin Hart no doubt make up the rest. And maybe a bit of Jack Black, whom I love, but his family film efforts have been really spotty. I liked Goosebumps though. Personally, I want Tenacious D sequel. But that’s just me.
Plus, a dearth of family films right now, which has also probably helped Greatest Showman. I have no interest in that film but I’m glad for Jackman. He’s had a good year.
So many good films out there still to see. I’ll get to them. Gonna be a fun few weeks.
I don’t think anyone (even STX in their wildest dreams) was expecting a $15-million+ opening for “Den of Thieves,” so that’s got to be considered a win.
Maybe Searchlight will finally expand “Shape of Water” into more than 800 (or thereabouts) screens post-Oscar nominations.
Am I the only one who thinks “awards season” is already over? I personally don’t give a damn what wins on Oscar night (still six weeks away!) since my favorite movie of 2017 (“Phantom Thread”) won’t even rate a (BP) nomination, and my multi-nominated-bridesmaid pick (“Lady Bird”) will never win. Let “Water” and “Billboards” duke it out, with “The Post” as a (yawn) potential spoiler.
“Awards season” ended for me when I received my last screener in early December. Everything since has been sound and fury signifying nothing.
I don’t really sense a lot of momentum on Shape of Water. However, it really is amazingly directed and produced.
3BB would be the better bet due to its performances, but Lady Bird remains my favorite in this horse race.
It’s my favorite too, Palm.
But, sadly, I don’t see “Lady Bird” making a serious run for BP. (Heck, even Laurie’s “sure thing” supporting actress win is now a long shot.)
At this point, “Get Out” has a better shot at spoiling the Searchlight party.
watching lady bird it was like, ‘is this movie about me?’ except the nuns at my catholic school were waaay meaner
haha, leah.
3BB winning SAG seems to confirm that it has an edge. Ugh, it’s Crash all over again.
Except that now 3BB is the clear front runner and Crash was the underdog right up until it’s name was called (I still remember what a punch in the gut that was). Meanwhile this sets Landry Bird up as the most likely spoiler. And while Metcalf was mentioned as a lock, doesnt Janney have the showier role, a little more good will toward the actress, and an opportunity to award a good movie that has no chance in another category?
Except that if winning the top prize at the SAG Awards is the barometer of frontrunner status, then maybe Crash wasn’t such an underdog. It won Best Cast. In fact, looking back, the SAG Award was probably the moment we should have realized Brokeback wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
IIRC David, while maybe not a champion of the movie did give quite a few warnings about the turning tide, using the SAG award as support for that. I believe the consensus was that he was out of his mind to even ponder it.
And I am sure more than one person mentioned Phantom.
I vaguely remember that with DP and other people making that argument, and then shrugging it off as if it was a momentary blip. Boy was I wrong.
I remember on Election night, thinking “Its Crash all over again!” Except of course like a thousand times worse.
Actually, Election Night made me think of Idiocracy.
^ Team America: World Police
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSssrirbaAE
Not box office related but I’ve been following Sundance coverage around the web and I’ve decided that I need to see MANDY right fucking now.
Here’s to being a few hours away from knowing where the Academy is going. They are trotting Gal out there, so there goes the excitement angle. Here’s to them surprising everyone. Dear god… surprise people, Academy. Come on! Make it good!
Completely unrelated to weekend box-office or (snooze) Oscar, but Sharon Stone is amazing in Soderbergh’s “Mosaic.”
One episode in, and it’s already my favorite performance by an actress in a “TV series, limited series or miniseries” since Jessica Lange’s towering Joan Crawford in “Feud.”
Why-oh-why isn’t Stone working more?
Oh, yeah.
She’s over 50. And a woman.
@movieman i believe she had a stroke. But yeah, the age and gender is definitely a factor as well.
I hadn’t heard that (the stroke), Spassky.
Well, she’s clearly made a stunning recovery.
Hope “Mosaic” gets Stone a LOT more future work in the industry.
apparently she lost some of her memories but she’s recovered them now (i read that somewhere)
meant to say,
RIP ursula kroeber Le Guin, i love you