Weekend Box Office Predictions: A Real Beauty at the Box Office
We’re a little over halfway through the month, and so far we’re really looking at a record March. 2012 has the record now with films like The Hunger Games (2012), The Lorax (2012) and 21 Jump Street (2012) all earning at least $130 million at the domestic box office, and thus far Logan is creeping up on $170 million, Kong: Skull Island is almost at $85 million, and now with the release of Beauty and the Beast, this will be the do-or-die as far as if 2017 can top 2012. The Belko Experiment is also opening this weekend, so Beauty won’t go it alone. Let’s get started.
Well, this ought to be an easy number one: Beauty and the Beast has everything going for it as far as getting the number one slot, but as far as if it can reach the upper-echelons of all-time opening weekends go, that might be harder to accomplish. We’ve had a really great marketing campaign, a well-rounded cast including Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Emma Thompson, Ian McKellen, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Gugu Mbathu-Raw…wow, I think this could be one of the biggest lineups of the year with this much talent. So with this much build-up, so many people who have seen and love the animated film, and tracking aiming at $150 million, what’s going to keep it from being the next Jurassic World (2015), which was tracking at $120 and ends up with a then-record $208 million? Well, the LaFou controversy keeping the film out of Malaysia and only 16 or older seeing it in Russia, plus many privately owned theaters banning the film stateside, and the NCAA Tournament underway, there are a few folks that will stay at home, but I don’t see a disappointing weekend ahead, plus 68% on Rotten Tomatoes isn’t spelling out a critical darling. One thing that pushes me over the edge to saying it will score better than tracking is the lack of family films recently. The LEGO Batman Movie opened over a month ago, and Rock Dog just wasn’t appealing enough for all audiences. I’ll go a bit higher than tracking at say it makes $160 million. 4,210 theaters play the film this weekend, so it should average $38,005 per theater.
Since Beauty and the Beast is not targeting the action, adventure, horror, or superhero audiences, Kong: Skull Island, Logan, and Get Out should all experience drop offs, but not huge ones. Now for what order they’ll come in? Well, I see Kong: Skull Island falling 55% in its second weekend, so that would mean $27.4 million, and second place, then I think Logan is going for an even 50% drop, meaning $19 million for its third weekend, still a phenomenal number for a March release, and Kong‘s holdover is a good one, too. Get Out should take fourth place. I’m going with a 30% drop-off and a fourth weekend total of $14.5 million. Maybe it does even better than that once again, so I’ll leave a little space between that and Logan to make sure. And for fifth place, I’ll go with another holdover, The Shack. It only fell 38% last week, and I’ll say it falls another 45% this weekend, and gets a third weekend of $5.5 million.
That leaves The Belko Experiment outside the top five. Only 1,341 theaters are playing it, and while the marketing has picked up here in the last two weeks, it’s still only tracking at $4.2 million, so it wasn’t like it was going to be a close battle at the top of the box office charts. The film does have Tony Goldwyn and Michael Rooker starring, and James Gunn is a writer and producer on the film, so the film has that going for it. Still, 47% on Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t make it a must-see for the casual fan, so I’ll go with an opening weekend of $4.5 million.
Now for how well we did last week: Kong: Skull Island did indeed take the top spot, earning $61 million. This was way above the $40 million tracked on the film, and even above my $53 million prediction, showing that yes, there is a market, even in March, for would-be summer blockbusters, even without a superhero in the film. Logan did indeed take second place, and it fell 57%, a bit further than my 45% off prediction. It made $38.1 million versus my $48.6 million prediction. Third place was another good prediction for Get Out, which fell only 26% and hit $20.7 million. I had $19.7 million, or off 30%. Fourth place was another correct one, The Shack, only dropping 38% and hitting $10 million, higher than my $8.9 million prediction. Fifth place was another good one: The LEGO Batman Movie, which fell 34% and hit $7.6 million in its fifth weekend, which was pretty close to my $7 million prediction. So all-in-all a few numbers were off here and there, but 5/5 correct predictions was nice. Hopefully that’ll happen again this week.
