Weekend Estimates: Turtles Power to $35.25 Million Debut

June 5, 2016

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows will top the box office chart this weekend with a respectable $35.25 million, according to studio estimates released on Sunday. The weekend as a whole is looking fairly ordinary though, thanks in large part to the muted debuts of X-Men: Apocalypse and Alice Through the Looking Glass last weekend, and their predictably-steep post-Memorial-Day declines. Apocalypse is off 66% this weekend to $22.325 million and $116.5 million in total. Alice will eke out $10.7 million or so for a two-week total of $50.8 million. Overall, the market will be down about 1% from the same weekend last year, and 20% below the comparable weekend from 2014.

The Turtles’ opening compares to the $65.6 million that the franchise reboot picked up back in August, 2014. That’s a 46% drop between installments, which puts the 28% drop between successive X-Men outings last weekend into perspective. The story is a little more complicated than that, though. Critics have by-and-large slammed the movie, with its Tomatometer score currently sitting at 37%. Audiences, however, seem to be enjoying it, judging by a 62% approval rating and an A- CinemaScore. It’s unlikely that will translate into good enough legs to take the film past $100 million domestically, but it should stave off disaster.

In third place this weekend, Me Before You will post a solid $18.27 million from a modest 2,704-theater opening. The film is popular among the folks who are going to see it, but isn’t benefiting from some negative publicity (see #MeBeforeEuthanasia for more). That will put a cap on its run, but Warner Bros. will be fairly satisfied with its overall performance.

Performing much worse, in spite of the best reviews of the weekend, is Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, which will end the weekend with about $4.6 million in the bank… and just barely scrape over the $2,000 Mendoza Line. Good word of mouth won’t be able to save this one in theaters, but it might yet find a following on video.

In limited release, four films are really standing out this weekend. Bollywood movie A Aa launched this weekend with over $1.3 million in just 126 theaters. Official numbers haven’t been announced, but it would be in 14th place for the weekend if we had them, and its theater average of $11,000 is the best for any film playing in more than a single theater. In much more limited release, The Wailing is doing great business with $224,700 projected from 32 theaters. And two films will top $10,000 from single locations: The Witness will pick up $15,000, and The Fits $11,300.

- Weekend estimates
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows Comparisons
- Me Before You Comparisons
- Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Comparisons
- Top 2016 movies at the global box office

- X-Men: Apocalypse Comparisons
- X-Men franchise history
- Alice Through the Looking Glass Comparisons
- The Angry Birds Movie Comparisons
- Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising Comparisons
- The Nice Guys Comparisons
- Captain America: Civil War comparisons
- The Jungle Book vs. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Alice Through the Looking Glass, X-Men: Apocalypse, Me Before You, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Goksung, The Witness, The Fits, X-Men