Weekend Box Office Predictions: Will Suicide Squad Die Hard?
For the past two weekends, Suicide Squad has topped the box office, despite the strong performance from Sausage Party last weekend. However, I see DC’s newest film facing its biggest competition yet this weekend. Could it fall to Jonah Hill and Miles Teller in War Dogs, or those foul-mouthed sausages? Also opening this weekend is the remake of Ben-Hur and the stop-motion animated Kubo and the Two Strings. I’ll admit, this weekend is going to be tough to call, because I see three outcomes: either Suicide Squad holds on, Sausage Party reins supreme, or War Dogs guns down the competition. Here’s what I think is going to go down this weekend.
The critic’s might not have Suicide Squad‘s back, nor all the moviegoers who saw it, but the devoted DC fans are sure to keep the film afloat for the next couple weeks. By Labor Day, though, I feel the film will back out entirely of the top five. The film did see a slightly more-than-expected drop last weekend of 67% and a $43.5 million haul, and I see a better hold this weekend. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) had a 54% drop in its third weekend, and I expect a similar drop of 55% this weekend, which should be enough for first place and a total of $19.5 million. While the film is doing just fine domestically, WB is probably a little upset that the film hasn’t cracked $500 million worldwide by the end of its second full week of release. Reportedly the film has to make around $700 million worldwide to cover production, marketing, and back-end costs. It might squeak by that, the same way Batman v Superman did this spring with it’s $800 million costs, but hopefully DC can amp it up next time.
Sausage Party, on the contrary of Suicide Squad, does have a backing from both critics and film-goers alike, and once again I am shocked at just how well it did last weekend. While some are predicting the film to top the weekend, and I wouldn’t be too shocked if it did, but there are two things that make me think twice. First, there has been a backlash, not from angry parents who were stupid enough to take their kids (see my blog from Monday), but rather from the animators who, evidently, were not credited for their work on the film, not compensated for overtime work, and were threatened to be terminated in employment if they did not comply with the long hours. While this hasn’t caught the media by storm, there have been some animated film fans who have gone out of their way to say they will not support the film. Plus the great opening might have been front-loaded. I say a drop of 45% is in store for the foods with attitude, totaling $18.8 million. In other words, a drop of 43% or less would be enough to beat Suicide Squad this weekend.
The film that is expected to perform the best this weekend is War Dogs. The Todd Phillips directed, Jonah Hill and Miles Teller starring film, is tracking for a $19 million opening, which would put it right in the mix for the top spot. While I’m not going to quite put it in that crowd of top contenders, it shouldn’t be too far off that and should open around $17 million. The critics haven’t been too harsh on it, and the film does open in 3,100 theaters. That should equate to an average per-theater performance of $5,484. Jonah Hill has been known to be a large box office opener, less so for Miles Teller, but the pairing has intrigued a lot of people and the story feels like one worth telling. Plus it can’t hurt to have the more high-browed appeal of Bradley Cooper in a supporting role. I’ll say the same as I did last weekend with Sausage Party: if the word-of-mouth is strong enough, the film could do better than expected. In this case, a carry of $20 million or slightly more is not out of the question, but I don’t quite feel the film has enough buzz to get there, at least not the current buzz.
A big disappointment is expected to take the 4th spot this weekend, Ben-Hur. The remake of the 1959 acclaimed epic is just plain not doing well. The trailers were uninteresting, the cast, outside of Morgan Freeman, are not draws, and there is little to no excitement for the film. Critics have started to pump out mostly negative reviews, and that can ‘t help very much. The tracking has been overly generous, in my opinion, calling for a $19 million opening. I doubt it. I place it at $13.5 million, which should be enough to keep it in 4th place. Like War Dogs, the theater count will be 3,100, so the average-per-theater should be about $4,355.
Also opening this weekend is the stop-motion animated Kubo and the Two Strings, and while it has the most critical praise of the films opening this week, and the highest theater count at 3,260, stop-motion animated films rarely open to big numbers. While it has a chance to top Ben-Hur for 4th place, I’m going to again go under the tracked opening prediction, $13.5 million, and say $12 million, which would be enough for 5th place. However, we also have the other wide release from last week, Pete’s Dragon, hopeful of a good second weekend. If it drops less than 50%, it will be in the $11-12 million range, threatening to top Kubo. While I’m tempted to put Pete and his Dragon at the top spot, we do have a lot of kids who are getting ready or who are already back in school for the fall, and it did open weaker than expected last weekend, so we might be saying too bad so sad with a 6th place finish for the second time around.
So now we’ll take a look at how I did last weekend: Suicide Squad was correctly predicted for 1st place, however I was off by 1%, or about $1.9 million. I had the second and third spots switched around. Sausage Party was much higher than expected with $10 more than predicted. Pete’s Dragon was weaker with a third place finish of $21.5 million, down $7.5 from predicted. As it turned out, Jason Bourne matched its average third weekend drop of 38% for a total of $13.8 million. I was off a whopping 11% or $2.6 million. Bad Moms did finish in 5th place with much better numbers than expected: $11.3 million, only off 18%, much better than my 40% drop prediction. Perhaps I should have kept in the top 5 this weekend as well. We’ll see what this weekend brings.
It really happens when two big companies collide together at box-office. As a viewer i got confused which one i have to choose. While used to human nature have to taste the newly cooked food therefore changed my mind.