Weekend Estimates: Jack Reacher No Match for Madea

October 23, 2016

Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween

Hollywood has a habit of underestimating Tyler Perry. When Diary of a Mad Black Woman opened back in 2005, it was expected to struggle to make the top 10, and yet finished top of the chart with a $21.9 million weekend. More than eleven years later, he, or perhaps more accurately, Madea, continues to defy tracking models and rack up wins at the box office, with Boo! A Madea Halloween set to top this weekend’s chart with a projected $27.6 million. That’s nearly $5 million better than the debut of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, which Paramount has coming in at $23 million.

To be fair, Never Go Back beat our pre-weekend prediction of $21 million and is going to do better internationally, so the film is far from a disaster. In fact, it’s further confirmation of Tom Cruise’s ability to open a film, and largely in keeping with the openings of Edge of Tomorrow ($28.8 million), Oblivion ($37 million), and the original Jack Reacher ($15.2 million in a pre-holiday launch that led to a long Christmas/New Year run). As an action hero, Cruise seems neck-and-neck with Ben Affleck, whose latest outing, The Accountant, opened with a very similar $24.7 million last weekend, and will earned about $14 million this time around, down 43%. Competition between the two films probably dulled Jack Reacher’s debut a bit.

For Tyler Perry, things also look good. A Madea Halloween is the sixth out of seven Madea movies to open over $20 million, and a step up from the $16 million picked up by A Madea Christmas. All of the films have topped $50 million domestically (while not earning a dime overseas, by the way), and this one will do so too.

Projected to land in third place (although virtually tied with The Accountant), Ouija: Origin of Evil will earn around $14.06 million, according to Universal. That’s a solid number for a horror film, which should benefit from Halloween in a week or so. It’s down from the $20 million debut of the first film in the franchise, but should be solidly profitable on a $9 million production budget and $20 million or so in marketing.

By comparison, two new releases are badly missing the mark this weekend. Keeping Up with the Joneses will start out with $5.6 million—even worse than Zach Galifianakis’ other recent comedy outing, Masterminds. Both films are suffering from poor reviews and word-of-mouth. I’m Not Ashamed is actually getting relatively decent reviews for a faith-based film, but will only manage $900,000 or so from 505 locations.

The big news among limited releases is a stellar opening for Moonlight, which A24 has pegged at earning $414,740 from just four theaters this weekend. That’s technically not the best performance in 2016, because The Revenant averaged $111,957 in four theaters on the weekend of January 1, but that tells you what kind of company it’s in. A24 has a history of massive launches like this, and they tend not to convert into huge box office hits. But this is definitely a film to watch as awards season ramps up.

Three other films that have reported so far will make it into the $10,000 average club. The Handmaiden is set to make about $92,000 from five theaters; Michael Moore in TrumpLand will top $50,000 in just two theaters; and Tampopo’s re-release through Janus Films is projected to earn $17,200 this weekend in a single theater.

- Weekend estimates

- Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween comparison chart
- Jack Reacher: Never Go Back comparison chart
- Ouija: Origin of Evil comparison chart
- Keeping Up with the Joneses comparison chart
- I’m Not Ashamed comparison chart
- The Accountant comparison chart
- Kevin Hart: What Now? comparison chart

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Masterminds, Ouija: Origin of Evil, The Accountant, Keeping Up with the Joneses, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Moonlight, Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween, A Ga ssi, I’m Not Ashamed, Michael Moore in TrumpLand, Tanpopo, Madea, Ouija, Tom Cruise, Ben Affleck, Tyler Perry