Friday Estimates: Rogue One’s $71.07 Million Opening Day Sets Stage for $150 Million Debut

December 17, 2016

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

There’s a lot of great news coming out of Friday. For starters, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story earned $70.07 million. This means its previews were 41% of its opening day figure, compared to 48% for The Force Awakens. I was expecting Rogue One to bounce back a little bit from its previews, but not this much. If Rogue One merely maintains The Force Awakens’ internal multiplier, it will earn $148 million over the weekend. There are some positive factors and some negative factors. For example, not all schools are closed on Monday, so it won’t be able to hold onto its box office numbers on Sunday, at least not as well as The Force Awakens did. However, its prospects improved from the afternoon shows to the evening shows and that shows word-of-mouth is strong. This makes sense, as its reviews have settled at 84% positive and it scored an A from CinemaScore. An opening weekend of $150 million is certainly within reach; our model is predicting $151 million. Disney is predicting a more cautious $145 million to $150 million.

Moana was way back in second place with $3.04 million on Friday, putting it on pace for $12 million over the weekend. It needed $10 million to stick around through to the new year, so this is a great result. The film has earned more at the domestic box office than it cost to make, but it will still need strong international numbers to break even any time soon. It is still too soon to tell where it will end up, but early results and mostly positive.

Collateral Beauty opened in fourth place with $2.4 million, putting it behind Office Christmas Party’s result of $2.62 million. This is not good. On the positive side, despite earning terrible reviews, it did earn an A minus from CinemaScore, so it might do well during the Christmas and New Year’s weekends. It won’t be a hit, but it likely won’t be a disaster for Warner Bros. either.

The best of the “wide” expansions was La La Land, which earned sixth place with $1.36 million in 200 theaters, putting it just ahead of Manchester by the Sea, which earned $1.29 million in 1,208. La La Land needed a theater average of $5,000 on Friday for the expansion to be a success and it got there with room to spare. Manchester by the Sea, on the other hand, likely won’t expand significantly beyond this point and it will need Awards Season success to help it stick around in theaters.

We also have opening day numbers for Fences, which earned $41,000 in 4 theaters on Friday, which is not only some good alliteration, but puts it in a good position for its wide expansion on Christmas day.

- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Comparisons
- Collateral Beauty Comparisons
- Manchester by the Sea Comparisons
- La La Land Comparisons

Filed under: Friday Estimates, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Manchester by the Sea, La La Land, Collateral Beauty, Office Christmas Party, Fences