Weekend Box Office Predictions: Wonder Woman and Captain Underpants Light Up June
As we get started with the second month of the summer movie season, we’re looking at two very different kinds of superhero adaptations. Of course we have film number four in the DCEU, Wonder Woman, and the animated film Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. Both films will be targeting the superhero audience, of course the latter will be aiming at kids, too, so I think both films are looking at decent, if not great, opening weekends. Let’s walk our way through the top five of the box office this coming weekend.
I think the number one slot will easily go to Wonder Woman. The film has a pretty good cast, including Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, and Connie Nielsen. Then you add acclaimed director Patty Jenkins into the mix and that heightens the excitement around it. But what is making this one suddenly a must see for a lot of people is all the hub-bub around the critical reviews. Unlike the previous entries in the DCEU, critics are overwhelmingly recommending the movie. It currently sits at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, easily the highest of any of the DCEU. While there were all sorts of complaints, mainly from DC die-hards, that there wasn’t enough advertising for the film. Well, I disagree. The film has hit every mark it has to hit at this point, and it is very noticeable. Add to that the fact that the character of Wonder Woman has been around for more than seven decades and this is the first time we have a film she’s appearing in by herself and not without the help of Supes and Bats, and all the other elements, it looks like a perfect storm leading up to a big weekend. Now while some, again DC fanboys, are saying $150 million, that’s nowhere close to realistic here. Sure, tracking has gone up and up week to week, starting at $65 million and now up to $111 million, I’m going higher with $128 million. As you may recall, my first ever weekend box office prediction blog was on Suicide Squad (2016), which I lowballed, so this time I’ll go higher. With 4,000 theaters playing it, we’re looking at a per-theater average of $32,000.
Second place is going to be quite a battle between last week’s champ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. The Pirates franchise averages a 50% drop-off from week one to week two, and even though Dead Men Tell no Tales had the second-lowest opening for the franchise, lots of moviegoers are saying it’s one of the better entries in the series. A 50% drop would mean $31.4 million would be the second week total. Keep in mind, this is a 50% drop based on the Friday-Sunday numbers, not the 4-day weekend numbers, which are different. Now, will that be enough for second place or will Captain Underpants get it? Well, my gut tells me to stick with the pirates, so that’s what I’ll do, but for Captain Underpants, there is potentially a lot going for it. We have a talented voice cast including Ed Helms, Kevin Hart, Thomas Middleditch, Nick Kroll, Jordan Peele, and Kristen Schaal just to name a few, and the popularity of the book series the film is based on. For me personally, I read a lot of the books in elementary school, so I am included in the audience for this one, and while tracking has it at $31 million, I don’t know if it can quite get there. The marketing campaign for the film just hasn’t hit. I’ve barely seen the film advertised, perhaps because of the title, and I think a total north of that is out of the question. Then again, family audiences have been suffering from a drought lately. The Smurfs didn’t hit back in April, and since then only The Boss Baby has been an option for family audiences, so with almost every kid out of school now and ready for summer entertainment, Cap Underpants will be on their minds, and surprisingly critics, who I thought would hate it, are liking it so far. Get this, 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, but that’s with only 5 reviews at the time I’m doing this blog, so for all I know it’s dropped to 12% by the time you’ve read this. I’m going with a first weekend total of $29 million. 3,300 theaters are playing the film this weekend, heading for a per-theater average of $8,788.
Fourth and fifth place will also be going to holdovers from the past few weeks. I’m going with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in fourth place, and with Wonder Woman being in direct competition, we’re looking at a 55% drop and a fifth weekend total of $9.4 million. And in fifth place I’ll go with last week’s release Baywatch, which I see having a big 60% drop off and a second weekend, leading to a $7.4 million total. Again that’s 60% off the Friday-Sunday numbers, not including the numbers it posted on Thursday or Monday.
So with that all done, let’s get to last week’s results and how I did predicting the top five. I went with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales with $73 million on the three-day weekend. It was lower than that, $62.9 million, again the second-lowest opening of any film in the franchise, and not a terrific start. I did say anything less than $65 million would be a disaster, but that was more aiming at the four day weekend. The Memorial Day bump was enough to get it to $78.4 million by the end of the holiday weekend, so in that regard it is not a disaster. Second place was incorrect for me: those damn Guardians just keep hanging around. They garnered $20.9 million over the three-day weekend, off only 39% from the previous week. I had the numbers just about perfect, just in third place, with $20.7 million and a 40% drop. My second place pick, Baywatch, came in third place with $18.5 million on the three day, much lower than my $27 million. Even its four day weekend was topped out at $23.1 million, so this is not good for Paramount. In fourth place I was back on track with Alien: Covenant which had a big fall, 70% and $10.6 million. I had it only falling 50% and getting $18 million, so again a huge problem. And fifth place was a good one for Everything, Everything, which fell 48% and hit $6 million on the three-day weekend, a bit higher than my $4.6 million prediction. So overall it wasn’t too bad predicting wise, but some big studios like Disney, Paramount, and Fox are going to be relying heavily on foreign markets to make up for budget and marketing costs, and I’m not sure if all of them can get it done. Well, we’ll see how June starts, but so far the big winner, obviously has been Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Let’s see if it’s just superheroes who can be massive success this summer.
