Weekend Box Office Predictions: Moana’s Time to Shine

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  Hopefully your holiday is off to a terrific start.  I personally have to stay at home with an energy-draining head cold that prevents me from being with my family, which sucks, but I’m going to use it to my advantage with my this week’s weekend box office predictions.  We have four films that just opened in wide release on Wednesday and two films in limited release tomorrow, and tons of leftovers from the last couple of weeks.  Anyways, since Moana, Allied, Rules Don’t Apply, and Bad Santa 2 are already playing, a few have some solid predictions for what they will make this weekend.  Since it is a holiday and I’m not feeling too hot, I’ll take it easy and cheat a bit with what I think will happen over the three-day weekend.

When it comes to checking the box office numbers, Deadline Hollywood usually gets the early numbers in, so I’ll use them as a guide for what the films have done so far and where they’re heading.  Once again, we’re only looking at the three day weekend from Black Friday to this Sunday, so we’re not counting the five-day weekend for yesterday and day’s grosses.  Moana is off to a brilliant start and Disney will win the weekend.  Dwayne Johnson can never be underestimated when it comes to box office draw, and neither can Disney’s animated films.  I would have said the three day weekend was looking at around $58.5 million or so, but with the early numbers in, I’m pushing it up to $63.5 million for the three day.  It’s playing in 3,875 theaters and should average $16,387 per theater, again only for the three day weekend.  The tracking for the film was putting it at $70 million for the five day, and it looks like it’ll beat that with a five day total of close to $95 million.

For second place, it looks like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will continue a good box office result.  It looks like it’ll earn about $39 million for its second weekend, down around 48%.  That’s fairly good news for the Potter heads out there who love the film.  Third place looks to belong to Marvel’s Doctor Strange, down about 20% from last week, or earning $14.2 million this weekend.  That pushes the film to over $200 million domestically within its first month of release, which is an excellent result for a C-list or D-list Marvel hero.

Now for fourth place we’re looking at a battle between Trolls and new release Allied, and I think the star power of Allied will win the fourth spot.  With Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard under Robert Zemeckis’ direction, it’s playing just fine for its stiff competition.  It’s in 3,160 theaters and is looking at about $11 million for its three day weekend, or averaging $3,481 per theater.  Once again tracking was for the five day weekend, which had it at $13 million, so that’s a pretty nice result for Paramount.  Trolls will be taking a bit of a hit for fifth place.  I think it’ll be down 50% from last weekend, or grabbing an estimated $8.7 million.

Now for the other two, Bad Santa 2 and Rules Don’t Apply, it’s bad news. Tracking was coming in with $13.5 million for Bad Santa 2, but its three day is looking at $6 million and a five day of $9 million, which hurts, and even worse is Rules Don’t Apply, which was only looking at $5 million for its five day, but is looking more like $1.5 million for the three day and a $2.5 million for its five day.  Guess Billy Bob Thorton and Warren Beatty are out to lunch this time.  Bad Santa 2‘s three day per-theater average is looking at $2,055 in 2,920 theaters and Rules Don’t Apply is looking at $630 per theater in 2,382.  Man, what a bummer.

Lion and Miss Sloane will light up the limited releases this weekend, and both look to expand further in the next few weeks.  With so much going on, the 4 theater count for Lion and 3 theaters playing Miss Sloane will be good averages, perhaps beating Moana and Fantastic Beasts.  That will remain to be seen, but both have some Oscar buzz to them so that should help their box office numbers.

So we’ll close with last week’s results, and they were very, very mixed for me.  Fantastic Beasts did come in first place with $74.4 million, pretty close to my $77.5 million prediction, so that’s a win.  Second place went to Doctor Strange, falling 58% in its third weekend.  I had it down 60% earning $17.1 million instead of its $17.7 million earning, so that was one wrong.  Trolls had third place, down 50% and earning $17.4 million in a close third spot.  I had it in second earning $19.2 million, so close, but no cigar.  Fourth place was correctly predicted for Arrival, which fell 49%, a bit steeper than my 40% prediction, earning $12.1 million instead of my $14.4 million guess.  Fifth place went to Almost Christmas, which I was putting below the top five and didn’t have a prediction for.  Instead I had The Edge of Seventeen earning $12.5 million, which wasn’t even close to its actual result.  Instead it had to settle for 7th place and a $4.7 million opening weekend.  Too bad, because audiences are missing out on this one.  For the other openers last weekend, I had Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk at $9.5 million and Bleed for This earning $8 million.  Want to know how far off these were?  Bleed for This came in 8th place with $2.3 million, ouch!  And Billy Lynn had only $900 thousand for 14th place!  That makes me look bad.  I guess I should have taken into consideration: it’s got a weird title that doesn’t roll off the tongue, reviews weren’t that great, and it was a film you had to know about to see.  I saw no advertisements for the film and the marketing wasn’t strong.  Bleed for This had much more marketing, but I guess the tough competition wore it down.  Plus Miles Teller and Aaron Eckhart aren’t exactly top selling stars.  So I’ve done much better before, and with only 2/5 correct predictions, I feel like a cheat weekend like this might boost my moral for the future.  So once again, have a happy Thanksgiving, enjoy Black Friday and don’t get smashed by those crazy shoppers, and be safe.  Oh, and of course, go out and support the movies!  Moana and Allied are both positive on Rotten Tomatoes with 97 and 64%, respectively, but critics weren’t taking it easy on Bad Santa 2 and Rules Don’t Apply with 24 and 58%.  You don’t have to listen to all critics, so don’t let that influence you.  If you think a movie looks good, go see it.  Then judge for yourself.

PlagmanRules

I am a gigantic movie nerd who spends his free time memorizing Oscar winners and nominees and seeing as many good movies as I can. I have always wanted to write about films, review films, and speculate on films, and hope that this site helps me get a couple of people who can agree or disagree with me.