Friday Estimates: Hotel Fully Booked
September 26, 2015
As expected, Hotel Transylvania 2 earned first place on Friday, but it did so with an unexpectedly strong result. The film pulled in $13.25 million for the day; by comparison, this is 21% higher than the first film’s debut. Sequels do tend to be a little more front loaded than the original film, but this is still a fantastic start. For instance, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs had a 3.72 internal multiplier of (weekend box office divided by Friday box office) while its sequel had an internal multiplier of 3.68. Granted, that's a tiny drop, but the reviews of these two films dropped dramatically, which likely had some effect. On the other hand, the two Hotel Transylvania films have earned nearly identical reviews. Hotel Transylvania earned an internal multiplier of 3.88, so if that drops to about 3.7, then Hotel Transylvania 2 would pull in about $49 million over the weekend. That's seems excessive. On the other hand, even earning just over $42.5 million and breaking the September record would be disappointing after an opening day like this.
The Intern is the first film written and directed by Nancy Meyers since It’s Complicated. However, that film came out on Christmas day in 2009, so it would be a terrible comparison here. On the other hand, The Family also stars Robert De Niro and it came out in September. That film opened in second place with $5.37 million and an opening weekend of $14.03 million. This film opened with $6.22 million on Friday, so if it has the same internal multiplier, it would open with $16 million. However, its reviews are much better and its genre tends to have better legs, so $18 million is within reach.
Everest was a box office disappointment, earning fourth place with $4.01 million on Friday. Granted, this isn't the film's opening weekend, as it was playing in over 500 IMAX theaters last weekend. Because of this, its internal multiplier should improve a little from last weekend, to give $14 million from Friday–Sunday.
The Green Inferno opened in seventh place with $1.47 million. Its reviews have fallen under the 40% positive level, which will hurt its legs a little, but even so it won’t fall below the Mendoza Line. It will be close with just under $4 million in roughly 1,500 theaters.
- Friday's Estimates
- Hotel Transylvania 2 comps
- The Intern comps
Filed under: Friday Estimates, Hotel Transylvania 2, The Green Inferno, Everest, The Intern, Hotel Transylvania, Robert De Niro, Nancy Meyers