Weekend Box Office Predictions: Pirates and Lifeguards Try to Keep Holiday Box Office from Drowning
It’s kind of funny how we have two films related to water opening over a Holiday weekend where most people are on vacations. I’m actually heading up to a lake for the long weekend, so I’ll be by water, but will audiences be checking out the water protectors of Baywatch or the Pirates of the Caribbean? Well, I think the obvious winner is just that, obvious, but what will each film gross, and how will the recent releases compare in the top five? Let’s get going.
So Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales looks to continue the tradition of a Pirates of the Caribbean film opening to number one, and don’t forget: we’re talking the Friday-Sunday numbers for all the predictions today, and I think that will be the case again. We have most of the cast of the series returning: from Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom and even Keira Knightley back in action in the film, we also have newcomers to the franchise Javier Bardem, Kaya Scodelario, Brenton Thwaites, and even Paul McCartney in the new film. For me personally, each film, with the exception of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) has progressively gotten worse since the fun first film, but I only single out On Stranger Tides because Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) was so bad it’s hard to get worse than that. Anyways, personal feelings aside, the films have been giants at both the domestic and worldwide box office, especially the latter. The marketing has been everywhere it needs to be, and I feel everybody’s aware of the release, but the big problem is does anybody care anymore? Well, critics certainly don’t. Dead Men Tell No Tales currently has the lowest rating of the series on Rotten Tomatoes with only 28% of critics recommending the film, and most everybody agrees the films aren’t getting better with each next entry. So I doubt it reaches the heights of the third and fourth films, $114.7 million and $90.1 million, respectively, and tracking has it hitting $68 million over the three-day weekend. With all of the marketing and the franchise name, anything lower than $65 million will be devastating for the film domestically speaking, but I think they’ll be fine, cause this thing’ll be a monster overseas. Arrr! Okay, that’s enough of that. I’m going a bit higher than tracking with a $73 million Friday-Sunday gross. Maybe it can top $85 million by the end of Monday. 4,276 theaters are playing the film, so we’re looking at $17,072 being the per-theater average if my prediction holds.
Second place looks like it will go to Baywatch, which is getting a leg-up on the competition by opening wide today. It had late screenings last night, and at the times of me writing this blog I don’t have those numbers, but this has been a big question mark for me: will the film be a huge hit with the very recognizable cast and IP, or is nobody interested and it’ll be the second bomb of the summer (the first being King Arthur: Legend of the Sword)? We’ve got Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, and Hannibal Buress leading the cast, plus the IP from the famous series, this could be a big hit for Paramount and all involved. On the other hand, for those too young to remember the series and who aren’t sold on the at times overly-aggressive marketing campaign, this could also be a big disappointment. Critics aren’t helping any with only 19% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes saying go see it. Tracking has it hitting $35 million over the three-day weekend, again not counting Memorial Day grosses or the Wednesday night previews or today’s daily gross. I’m thinking that there is a number of potential audience-goers who were on the fence and waiting to hear if it’s good, and with a number of critics siting it as one of the worst of the year so far, I’d say we’ll see a three-day gross of $27 million. That sounds low for a Zac Efron-Dwayne Johnson team-up, but it might surprise. Depending on how it did last night and how it does today, $40 million or more could be in the pocket by the end of Memorial Day. For the three day, $27 million means $7,403 is the per-theater average with 3,647 theaters playing the film.
Now for third through fifth places, of course we’ll rely heavily on leftovers from the start of the month. With the mixed word-of-mouth from Alien: Covenant, I think that leaves Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 open for a third place finish. I’m saying it drops 40% overs its fourth weekend and hits $20.7 million, no small feat. Fourth place is likely where Alien: Covenant will end up, dropping 50% and reaching $18 million, so there is an outside chance it’s a close battle for third. And in fifth place I’m going with Everything, Everything, which had a pretty good debut last weekend. These kind of films are pretty front-loaded, so it’ll fall 60% and hit $4.6 million.
Now let’s look back to last week and see how I did predicting the top five. First place indeed went to Alien: Covenant, which eared $36.1. That was below my $42 million prediction, and a definite sign that Prometheus might have turned many fans off from any further adventures in the Alien franchise. Second place went to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 with $34.6 million, off only 46%. I had it off 50% and making $32.6 million. In third place, I went with the other big winner last week, Everything, Everything, which impressed with a $11.7 million opening weekend. That was above my $9 million prediction. Snatched came in fourth place, earning $7.8 million, exactly where I had it. Fifth place was the only misstep last week, with King Arthur: Legend of the Sword earning $7.1 million, which actually was the same result for my fifth place prediction: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, but it was more like $7.152 to $7.126 so that was pretty close in the actual grosses. My prediction was $6.5 million, so it did a bit better than my stance on it last week. Still, 4/5 is a big improvement over the last couple of weeks, so let’s hope that keeps up. In the meantime I hope everybody has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and that you all take it easy. Just remember, the past few years Memorial Day has been a bit of a slump. Now whether that’s due to the quality of the films released or just that not everyone goes to the theaters remains to be seen and it fluctuates from year to year, so if both Pirates and Baywatch disappoint this weekend, we can probably claim that’s due to poor reviews, but I’ll keep an eye on that and see what the audience ratings are. I’ll keep you updated and get back to you on that next week.
