Weekend Box Office Predictions: Arthur and Snatched will be Bested by the Guardians
With the summer movie season underway, Mother’s Day weekend is upon us and we see the wide release of two new films: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and Snatched. We also have Lowriders entering into 275 theaters, and The Wall in moderate release with 520 theaters, so we’ll talk about them, too. All right, let’s get crackin’.
So with the really great numbers posted last week for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, I don’t see that film not being number one again this weekend. The two wide releases should do just fine, but Guardians will win the weekend with $65.9 million its second weekend. That’s off 55%, which is what happened with the first film. Of the two new releases this weekend, tracking has it very tight between the two newcomers for the battle for second place. I’m gonna go with King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Part of the reason behind that is the star power with actors like Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Djimon Hounsou, and Eric Bana and with a director like Guy Ritchie behind the project that brings some numbers. It will also open in more theaters than Snatched, but again just barely. Another reason I’m going with this in second place is that sneak screenings of the film late last month sold out at multiple theaters across the country, which I did not think would happen at all. One thing that will slow down potential business is critical reviews, which are at 22% on Rotten Tomatoes. Marketing has been okay, though, but I suspect Warner Bros. is holding off on strong marketing pushes until we get Wonder Woman next month. Tracking has it earning $21 million, but I’ll go a bit higher thanks to the stars, sold out advance screenings, and IP and say $28 million. 3,600 theaters will play it so we’re looking at $7,778 as the per-theater average.
For Snatched, you’ve got the star power of Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Wanda Sykes, Joan Cusack, Ike Barinholtz, and Christopher Meloni behind it, plus director Jonathan Levine has a few strong credits to his name, and the marketing has been very strong in my opinion. That being said, the critics are only at 37% on Rotten Tomatoes and there’s a number of analysts saying this could be this year’s Hot Persuit (2015), remember that one? Anyways, so despite the star power of the two leads, I’m going with $20 million, which is just below the tracked $21.5 million, which would mean at 3,501 theaters $5,713 is the per-theater average. So it’s still heading for a pretty good showing.
And to fill out the top five, we’re looking at holdovers The Fate of the Furious and The Boss Baby. The latter is actually my pick for fourth place, and with the lack of kids films until next weekend with the next Diary of a Wimpy Kid film, and the benefit of mothers wanting to take their kids out to the theaters this weekend, Boss Baby will be the number one choice for those youngsters who aren’t old enough for Guardians or King Arthur. I have it falling only 30% and hitting $4.1 million it’s seventh weekend. Who could have guessed it being this successful this far into release? The former is dealing with direct competition from Guardians and also a bit of King Arthur, so that will probably fall 60% and hit $3.4 million, which should be enough for fifth place.
For the two other newcomers in limited or moderate release, I’m thinking Lowriders will do slightly better than The Wall, mainly because the marketing is more noticeable than The Wall, plus you have Demian Bichir, Eva Longoria, and Melissa Benoist in the cast. The film is split right down the middle with the few critics who have seen it, so we’ll see what happens over the next few days and see if that slides up or down. Tracking has it hitting $1.5 million, and I am going to say that is what it earns. In 275 theaters that means $5,455 is your per-theater average. As for The Wall, sure you’ve got John Cena and Aaron-Taylor Johnson in the lead roles, but the marketing has been non-existent, which isn’t helping. It does have 61% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is the highest rated film this week, and a little over 500 theaters playing it. No tracking is available, but I think $1 million is about all we can expect from it. So that means the per-theater average is $1,923.
We’ll take a look back now at last week’s predictions, and with two exceptions, everything else went wrong, and in big ways. I was a bit high on Guardians Vol. 2, which did win the weekend, but topped out at $146.5 million, not quite reaching my $167 million prediction. Still up 54% from the original opening is nothing to sneeze at. Second place went to The Fate of the Furious with $8.5 million. I had it in third place with $6.9 million. My second place prediction was a foolish one: Baahubali 2: The Conclusion. I should have known the biggest rule of thumb with foreign films in the box office: Bollywood films are big hits the first weekend then disappear. It was out of the top five and in seventh place at $3.3 million, less than half of my $7.2 million prediction. Third place went to The Boss Baby with $5.9 million. I had it at $4.6 million in fifth place. As for my fourth place prediction, How to Be a Latin Lover, was the only other good prediction from last week, with $5.1 million at the actual box office, but I had it a bit higher at $6.7 million. And in fifth place at the weekend box office last week was Beauty and the Beast, which snuck back into the top five with $5 million in its eight weekend. As you can probably tell I did not have a prediction for it last week. Man, something’s gotta go my way this week, right? Hopefully. Happy Mother’s Day to everyone out there. If you’ve got the chance, take your mom to the movies. There’s a few good ones out there.
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