Friday Box Office Estimates

A bit better than the first of this series… a little worse than the second… this Friday ape-ening is a box-office non-story. As we humble Americans are getting sick of writing every week, the story is international, where Rise of the Planet of the Apes did $200 million more than Dawn ($502m international). $175m – $225 million is what domestic will look like. Spider-Home has a normal drop off a $100m+ open, so far. The Big Sick goes wide and with a $3.000-ish per-screen for the weekend, is doing solid business to scale. Baby & Woman hold fast. Wish Upon continues the meh-diocre opening streak for Broad Green.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Spider-Man returns… but how much better are the numbers? At the end of its first weekend, The Amazing Spider-Man had brought in $137 million. With a $51m Friday, Spider-Man: Homecoming is on pace to have about the same amount as ASM. The Big Question remains… can the latest reboot do more than $500 million worldwide to top the previous incarnation? Also opening wide… nothing. A24’s A Ghost Story will do about $25k per screen on four for the weekend.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Hard to say what this Despicable weekend will turn into when compared to other Despicable weekends. There still seems a strong chance of a $100 million 3-day, given normal patterns… but it could be short… or it could challenge Minions‘ $115m launch. And how will a Tuesday July 4 play? Baby Driver isn’t blowing the roof off, but it is getting the word of mouth to fuel it forward. Edgar Wright’s biggest domestic open by a long shot. And WB threw The House out like trash and it’s performing as such.

Friday Box Office Estimates

It’s not pretty, but the projections on Transformers 5 are pretty much on target at this point… slightly low. Even people in Iowa know that the movie is waiting for international to take it from relative zero to an uncomfortable hero. Drops for Cars 2, Wonder Woman, and Pirates 5 are looking pretty good for the weekend. The Beguiled will do boffo per-screen on four… high 50k, low 60k. But the king of indie this weekend is The Big Sick, which could end up doing $70k per screen on five.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Cars 3 opens to almost exactly the same Friday number as Cars, while the whole enterprise looks to international and merchandising to make the effort worth Pixar and Disney’s while. Meanwhile, All Eyez on Me reminds us that a 24 on Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t matter if there are people predisposed to see the movie. Byron Allen’s new distribution venture opens 47 Meters Down to about two-thirds of what The Shallows opened to… which will likely be seen as a win in some quarters. And Rough Night lived up to its title at the box office.

Friday Estimates

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Friday Box Office Estimates

She’s a wonder, Wonder Woman. There are a lot of ways to dissect the opening of Wonder Woman, the first non-Batman/Superman standalone character film in the DC Cinematic Universe. The broadest one is that this will be the smallest opening of the four films under Zach Snyder, but may well be the biggest domestic grosser when all is said and done… because “average moviegoers” actually like it. The film may also skew the gender balance of ticket buyers, which would add to audience count, not detract.

Friday Box Office Estimates

56, 43, 35, 23. See a pattern here?

Those are the opening days of the first four Pirates movies. The first film had a Wednesday open and a $14m first Friday.

Domestically, Pirates is over at this scale, what with a $40 million star in the lead. Internationally, Disney is hoping not to care what happened domestically.

Paramount had an ugly Baywatch launch.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Alien: Covenant comes out of the gates a little slower than Prometheus… probably because of the reception for Prometheus. This more conventional Alien movie is paying the price. But what Fox needs is for audiences to like it and for the numbers to accelerate, suggesting that there may be a reason to make more prequels. International tell the story here. Everything, Everything has a nice open for the rare WB cheapie title. Fox’s franchise hits the wall with a cast change. Or maybe it’s just a victim of Fox opening three movies in eight days?

Friday Box Office Estimates

The Guardians of The Galaxy are heroes… but this week they are beating up on the weak. Solid second weekend, but hardly heroic. With Arthur, WB must have been hoping to pull off another Tarzan$39m opening, in spite of media lining up to kill it in the crib)… but alas, no. As for Snatched, well… it’s no Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. In an exclusive run (four screens), Paris Can Wait will be over $10k per screen.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Today is a half-full/half-empty day in box office analysis. Guardians 2‘s opening day is $18 million higher that the original (in August 2014). It will be the weakest Marvel-made MCU opening of the summer since The Avengers, which was the first of four summer openers in the last five years. But it’s better than the fifth summer opener in the last five years, Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man 2, which opened softly enough ($91m) to get Sony to change its relationship with Marvel on the franchise. Then again, it may open softer than Spider-Man 3 did a decade ago. It is a win, any way you slice it… but context is sticky.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Here’s something you don’t see every week… a Telugu-Tamil-Hindi-Malayalam language film release coming in #2 on the charts. These narrow releases do solid business and are on the chart almost every weekend. But rarely are the major U.S. distributors pushing so softly that you see a title in the Top 3. The #3 for Friday was another crossover, as Lionsgate pushes out a film to their developing Spanish-language market starring popular Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez. The third newcomer is STX’s The Circle, which has Beauty & The Hanks, but marketing that spoke no one’s language.

Friday Box Office Estimates

A big, but not unexpected Friday-to-Friday drop for The Fate of The Furious, as the domestic engine of this franchise fades while the rest of the world keeps revving. Newcomers barely register, as barely-marketed Unforgettable, Disney doc Born in China and political passion project The Promise will each open to under $5 million for the weekend. Only one exclusive release will even hit $10k per-screen.

Friday Box Office Estimates

The Fate of the Furious opened well in North America by every standard but the last F&F movie, Furious 7. But the rest of the world, particularly China, is making up for that in a big way, where Fate is having a $200 million weekend, which, even with Universal only getting a quarter of that, amounts to a huge worldwide opening. The rest of the Top 10 is holding well in spite of the big new opener. A $100 million opening just doesn’t stretch the marketplace to anything close to its max anymore. The Lost City of Z, Maudie and Chasing Trane all opened well in limited.

Friday Box Office Estimates

It will be a close race for the Meaningless Box Office Title, as Boss Baby and Beauty & The Beast start the weekend neck & neck. Saturday will tell the tale, but Sunday estimates of the weekend for the two films will be as political as they are mathematical. Newcomers Going in Style and poorly-timed Smurfs: The Lost Village will also battle for position, though only for a soft third. Ghost in the Shell falls into the abyss (domestically). Three new limited releases with high profiles land, with the strongest looking like the Anne Hathaway “monster movie,” Colossal.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Trump looks like he may win again, as his first-act incarnation, The Boss Baby, should trend as a family movie to take the weekend in a close contest with Beauty Weekend 3. Pulling into third place among newcomers, body suit Scarlett Johansson, built to kill the beast, but unable to do so. And The Zookeeper’s Wife looks to be doing exceptional business in a very unusual screen-count launch.

Friday Box Office Estimates

The second weekend of a tale as old as time not only beating out two space-y films, but beating the two combined. The Beauty is looking at the #4 all-time slot for best second weekend to boot. Power Rangers, which spent a ton on advertising, is not a bust. But box office prognosticators are flying blind on where this one is going. Will it play on Saturday and across the globe? Life is a brutal opening, given its ambition. And CHiPs is another waste of Dax Shepard and Michael Pena and of WB’s time.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Tale as old as 1991… loved to say the least… throngs come out for Belle, critics ring death knell, Beauty and the Beast…

It’s the fourth biggest opening day outside of the summer/holiday windows. $155 million seems like the floor for the weekend. This kind of huge success seemed inevitable when incisive critics started reviewing Disney’s business model instead of the movie. Canaries in the coal mine.

In exclusives, Boyle & Malick will each go over $10k per screen in throwaway releases.