Weekend Box Office Predictions: 2017 Starts with a Bomb
Well, we’ve made it to 2017, and it’s time for another box office weekend prediction. This weekend sees the release of just one new wide release, Underworld: Blood Wars. We’ve also got three previously limited releases finally expanding wide: Hidden Figures, A Monster Calls, and La La Land. So on top of all of those Christmas season releases that have already been out for a while, we’ve got a crowded number of films competing for the top five slots, and here’s how I think it’s going to go down.
In the number on spot, it looks like it’s one a close one, but I’m gonna go with Sing. It’s just been doing so well, and looks like it could reach $200 million by Friday very easily. I have it only falling 35% due to lack of competition and strong word of mouth, which equates to a third weekend total of $27.8 million. Star Wars: Rogue One won’t be far behind, down 50% from last week, hitting $24.8 million in its fourth weekend. That should be enough for it to come close to or top $486.2 million, the magical number Finding Dory (2016) hit to become the highest grossing film of 2016. So it’s Disney vs. Disney in that respect, but Rogue One will pass that.
For the number three spot, it’ll be between Hidden Figures and Underworld: Blood Wars. Looking at the previous films in the franchise, the average opening for the Underworld franchise is $23.6 million, but both tracking and my intuition says that this will be lower than that average. Tracking has the film hitting $17 million for the weekend, and with a strong marketing presence, I’d say it’ll actually be closer to $18.5 million for the weekend. Sure, Kate Beckinsale is still a strong appeal for the brand and for this genre, but the age of the franchise is beginning to show. It will play in 3,065 theaters and should average $6,036 per theater. Now as far as how well Hidden Figures does, I’d say we’re looking at a higher number than tracking has, $11 million, and more like $16.5 million. With a huge ensemble including Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Costner, Jim Parsons, and Kirsten Dunst, just to name a few, plus all the Oscar buzz it’s getting, that should explain the boosted expectations. It will expand into 2,300 theaters and should hit $7,174 per theater.
The number five slot will totally be decided by the drop off of Passengers or just how high La La Land climbs in its now wide release. While Passengers will have the theater count advantage, the word of mouth is very mixed and it hasn’t quite reached the heights Sony wanted it to hit by now, so I’d say that one falls out of the top five and La La Land takes its place. The combined star power of both Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, the Oscar front-runner status, and the interest around the movie as a whole really makes this one a strong contender this weekend for finally landing in the top five. La La‘s weekend totals have gone up every weekend since release, and for this weekend, I say it goes up 25% from last weekend and hits $11.9 million. It’ll play in an estimated 1,500 theaters now. That would mean an average of $7,933 per theater.
And now we’ll take a look at last week’s scorecard. Oh boy. Well, I got the number one spot right with Star Wars: Rogue One. I had it falling 30% and hitting $44.8 million. I wasn’t too far off: $49.6 million only off 22%. The number two spot was also correctly predicted for Sing, but I had it going down 25% and hitting $26.4 million. I wasn’t even close: it jumped 21% and hit $42.8 million over the three day weekend. Next up was another correct prediction for Passengers which made $16.1 million its second weekend, up 8%. I had it going down 35% and hitting $9.7 million. Now we get really bad. Fourth place was predicted for Why Him? and the number I gave it was $8.2 million. It made $10 million but was in fifth place. At the actual box office, Moana came back into the top five hitting $10.9 million. My fifth place prediction was $7.3 million going to Fences. It did better than that, making $10 million as well, but came in sixth place. So not just with mixing some films up, but with the number predicted, it was horrible last week. We’ve turned a new page on the calendar, and hopefully this also means we can start off 2017 with a good box office forecast.
