Friday Estimates: Star Trek Soars with $22.5 million

July 23, 2016

Star Trek Beyond

As expected, Star Trek Beyond led the way on the Friday box office chart, earning $22.5 million. This is in line with the average among analysts, but lower than my prediction. I did warn you about irrational exuberance. Given the film’s reviews and its A CinemaScore, it should have a relatively good internal multiplier. Look for an opening weekend of close to $57 million, which is significantly better than Ghostbusters’ opening with last week and not that much worse than what X-Men: Apocalypse opened with in May. I assume Paramount is happy with this result, but the film will need good legs and a strong international run to justify another sequel.

Lights Out opened in second place with $9.15 million, but it won’t last in second place for long. Horror films, even ones with good reviews, tend to have a small internal multiplier, so it will have settle for third or fourth place with $21 million over the weekend. By comparison, the film cost $5 million to make. It likely cost close to $20 million to advertise, so if hasn’t broken even yet, but it will. On a side note, despite earning 78% positive reviews, it only managed a CinemaScore of B. Horror fans rarely give horror films a score in the A range, so this isn’t a bad result.

The Secret Life of Pets was pushed into third-place $8.65 million on Friday. Fortunately, the direct competition we were worried about isn’t nearly as strong as expected, so it will bounce back into second place with $29 million for the weekend. It will be at $260 million by the end of the day on Sunday, keeping it on pace to get to $300 million by the end of the month, more or less.

Ice Age: Collision Course only managed fourth place on Friday with $7.8 million. The previous installment in the franchise opened with $16.73 million during its opening day. It also earned better reviews than this outing. Meanwhile, Collision Course was given a B+ by moviegoers, which is on par with The Angry Birds Movie. If this film has the same internal multiplier as Continental Drift had, then it will make just under $22 million over the weekend. I think that’s a little generous, because of the weaker reviews, so look for just under $20 million.

Ghostbusters rounded out the top five on Friday with $6.2 million for an eight-day total of $71.5 million. This is actually better than some people were expecting it to earn in total. The film should earn $21 million over the weekend, which is exactly as predicted and that puts it on pace to earn $125 million domestically. It should make $175 million or more internationally, while its merchandising has “exceeded expectations”. It looks like the film will break even, although it might be because of the auxiliary markets, like toys.

- Friday Box Office

- Star Trek Beyond Comparisons
- Ice Age: Collision Course Comparisons
- Lights Out Comparisons

Filed under: Friday Estimates, Ghostbusters, The Secret Life of Pets, The Angry Birds Movie, Ice Age: Collision Course, Lights Out, Star Trek Beyond, Ice Age