Weekend Box Office Predictions: Kong vs. Logan in the Title Match
After Logan‘s great debut last weekend, we head into the second weekend of March with a lot of hope that this will continue to be a solid month at the box office. Now we have Kong: Skull Island as the lone newcomer this weekend, and that makes my job a lot easier, because it will be either number one or number two based on how well Logan holds on. Let’s get into it.
I might be the fool this weekend who says that Kong: Skull Island will be the big winner, but really this is a mano y mano. It could go either way. So, I’ll say this for Kong: the cast is a very eclectic one: from Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman and John C. Reilly to Toby Kebbell, John Ortiz, Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell, there’s really a lot of diversity and great talent on display here. Anyways, there’s also goodwill from critics: 83% on Rotten Tomatoes at this point, and it’s in a connected universe with Godzilla (2014), which soared to a $93.1 million opening weekend. Well, that was in May, and this is March, so there won’t quite be as many moviegoers out and about. The marketing has been kick-ass, from great trailers going back to Comic-Con last July to an action-packed look at the film released just a week ago, they really haven’t missed a beat. Sure, the Peter Jackson King Kong (2005) left some fans with a bad taste in the mouth, and the same can be said for some with the 2014 Godzilla, so that might impact box office business, but still back in 2014 when Godzilla hit that number, it was unexpected. I think we’ll have similar case this time. The tracking number is way lower than I’m putting, $40 million, so I might just be in for a letdown, but I’m going high with $53 million. As long as Logan, which is also targeting the action/adventure crowd a bit with that film, doesn’t have a monster second weekend, it should grab that top spot. 3,800 theaters will play the film, so the per-theater average should be $13,947.
So one thing we have to consider: no matter how good or bad, X-Men films tend to have big drop-offs in their second weekend. While I think Logan will not have as huge a drop off as, say, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), at 69%, I see Logan still falling at minimum 45%, which would put it in the $48.6 million. I mean, there is a chance we’ll get a 40% or less drop, bringing it closer to $53 million or more, identical to my prediction for Kong: Skull Island, but even all the good X-Men films like X-Men: First Class (2011) falling 56% in its second weekend or X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) falling 64%, and if you count Deadpool (2016), even that fell 57%. So really, the 45% falloff I’m predicted does buck the trend, it will fall in second place if my prediction for Kong stays true. Still, almost $50 million in a second weekend in March is phenomenal. Most opening weeks in March don’t get that high.
For third place, I think we’ll see another great holdover for Get Out. The horror film has been tearing it up at the box office, and since both Logan and Kong are going after the action crowd, the horror crowd should continue to go out to this one. I’m going with a 30% drop off and a third weekend total of $19.7 million, which should be enough to bring its domestic total to $105 million after just three weeks. That’s incredible, not just as a horror film in late February/early March, but for a debut horror film from a guy whose comedy skit series brought him an Emmy. Fourth place looks like it will belong to The Shack, which did extraordinarily well last weekend. For the most part, the word of mouth has been positive, so I’m saying a 45% drop off and a second weekend of $8.9 million. And in fifth place that family audience is still hungry, so The LEGO Batman Movie should hold out in the top five for one last week and hit $7 million this weekend, off 40% from last weekend. It’s the first film at the 2017 box office to hit $150 million domestic, and I’m sure Logan will be right behind it, and even Get Out has a shot of getting into firing range of that number, too.
Now looking back on last weekend, let’s see how I did as far as predicting goes. In first place, Logan crushed with $88.4 million, which was pretty close to my $82.5 million prediction. Second place, indeed, went to Get Out, but it did even better than I thought it would. Get this, 15% off from the weekend before and $28.2 million at the actual box office, much better than my $21.6 million. In third place came newcomer The Shack with $16.1 million, way above my $9 million 4th place prediction. My third place prediction, The LEGO Batman Movie had to settle for fourth place with $11.7 million, very close to my $11.5 million, so I had the number spot on but in the wrong place. In fifth place was another holdover, John Wick: Chapter Two, which held on with $4.8 million. My fifth place prediction, Before I Fall, was initially in the top five with estimates, but when the actual numbers came in on Monday, it was bumped out, earning $4.6 million, just a tad off of my $5 million prediction. So overall the predicted numbers were almost all close or spot on, but the 3-5 placements screwed me from having a great result. Still, this weekend will be a promising showdown and overall there’s a lot of good content in the theaters, so go out and support your local theater and see a film, chances are you’re seeing one you’ll enjoy.
