Friday Estimates: Office Party Gets off to a Wild Start with $6.6 million

December 10, 2016

Office Christmas Party

As expected, Office Christmas Party earned first place on Friday with $6.6 million. Its reviews have settled at 44% positive, which is lower than you would like, but fine for this type of release. Likewise, it earned a B from CinemaScore. Neither figure will help its legs, but neither will really hurt them either. By comparison, The Night Before earned $3.56 million during its opening day on its way to a $9.88 million opening weekend. If Office Christmas Party has the same internal multiplier, then it will earn $18.3 million this weekend. However, The Night Before earned 66% positive reviews and an A- from CinemaScore. Office Christmas Party’s weaker performances with critics and audiences will likely result in a lower legs and an opening weekend of just over $17 million.

Moana earned second place on Friday with $4.16 million, putting it on pace for a weekend haul of just over $18 million, which means it will be in a close race with Office Christmas Party over the weekend. It also means it is starting to fall further behind Frozen’s pace and that will only accelerate over the next couple of weeks. It has massive competition next weekend and direct competition the week after that, so it won’t be able to hold on to theaters as well as Frozen did. On the other hand, anything more than $200 million domestically will be reason to celebrate, while $600 million worldwide will be enough to pay for its combined production and P&A budgets.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them matched expectations nearly perfectly with $2.9 million on Friday to put it on pace for $10 million over the weekend.

There were a couple of surprises lower down the list. Firstly, early estimates have Nocturnal Animals beating Miss Sloane on Friday $1.1 million to $660,000. Miss Sloane did earn an A- from CinemaScore, while Nocturnal Animals wasn’t even tracked. Neither film is going to expand significantly beyond this point, but Nocturnal Animals will likely be able to hold on to most of its theaters through the end of the year.

Lastly, La La Land had an explosive opening day, earning approximately $300,000 in just five theaters. It will destroy Moonlight’s record for best theater average for a 2016 release, which is currently $100,519. It might even top The Grand Budapest Hotel’s all-time live-action record of $202,792.

- Friday Box Office Chart

- Office Christmas Party Comparisons

Filed under: Friday Estimates, Moana, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Nocturnal Animals, La La Land, Moonlight, Miss Sloane, Office Christmas Party