Weekend Estimates: LEGO Towers Over All

February 16, 2014

Lego poster

It's looking like a healthy President's Day weekend at the box office, with one impressive debut and several movies enjoying strong second, fourth, and even thirteenth weekends. The champion opener is About Last Night, a remake of the 1986 hit, which will open with about $27 million over three days, helped by a big $13 million Valentine's Day. With the film playing in only 2,253 theaters, that represents a terrific $12,000 theater average, and continues Kevin Hart's hot streak. Handily beating About Last Night at the top of the chart, though, is The LEGO Movie, with a projected $48.8 million over three days, and around $60 million over the full four-day weekend. That's down a decent 29% from last weekend, for a theater average of almost $13,000.

This weekend's other new releases are a bit more of a mixed bag. RoboCop, a remake of the 1987 film of the same name will post around $21.5 million for the three-day weekend, on top of around $5 million earned earlier in the week. That's OK, but not enough to take much of a chunk out of its comparatively high production budget. Endless Love, a remake of the 1981 film of the same name, will debut with $13.4 million or so, which is a better performance compared it its relatively lower budget, but still not enough to suggest significant profitability.

Bucking the '80s remake model this weekend, and performing worst at the box office, is Winter's Tale. While not a remake, it is an adaptation of a book of the same name, but its literary background doesn't seem to have helped it much, with a theater average of a shade over $2,500 and $7.8 million expected over three days.

Returning films are having a good weekend. Ride Along is set to fall only 9% from last weekend, probably helped by the presence of the ubiquitous Kevin Hart. Frozen will be off just 15% in its thirteenth weekend in release. Its $5.85 million box office makes it the proud owner of the thirteenth-best thirteenth weekend at the box office. Perhaps its luck is about to run out?

Also playing for a thirteenth week, and getting a major expansion this weekend is Philomena, which has certainly been flogged tirelessly by Weinstein, but hasn't really caught fire with audiences. It will earn $1.4 million or so this time around, for an average barely over $1,000.

Dwarfing that figure, and showing how times are changing, Beijing Love Story will post an average of about $14,000 in nine theaters this weekend to top the Per Theater Chart.

- Weekend Estimates

Bruce Nash

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, RoboCop, Ride Along, Frozen, About Last Night, Endless Love, Winter’s Tale, Philomena, Bei Jing Ai Qing Gu Shi, Kevin Hart