Weekend Predictions: Will Inferno Catch Fire over the Weekend?

October 27, 2016

Inferno

There’s only one wide release this week, Inferno, and it should have no trouble earning first place. On the other hand, it won’t come close to matching the other two films in the Da Vinci Code franchise. Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween earned first place last week, but Madea movies tend to have short legs, so it could see a large drop-off this weekend. Or perhaps Halloween will help it thrive. This weekend last year, Halloween landed on a Saturday. It comes as no surprise that this was a disaster for the box office. The “best” new release, Burnt opened outside of the top five with just $5 million. The two and a half wide releases earned a combined $10 million last year. This year, there’s a small chance Inferno will earn $10 million during its opening day. There’s almost no chance 2016 won’t crush 2015 in the year-over-year comparison.

Inferno has the weekend to itself, which is the good news. The bad news is practically everything else. The film’s reviews are terrible and the source material for the franchise is just no longer in vogue. Then again, the books fell out of fashion before the second film hit theaters. That’s why there was a 40% drop-off from the first film’s opening weekend to the second film’s. Most analysts think the drop-off this time will be even steeper. A 50% drop off to just over $23 million seems likely. This is on par with most of the other action / thrillers that have opened this month, but not enough to be a real hit.

Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween earned first place last weekend, but will likely fall to second place this weekend. There are some who think it will drop to third place. Granted, a 60% drop-off wouldn’t be uncommon for a Madea movie and that would leave the film with just $11.4 million over the weekend. I think Halloween will give it a little boost and put it at just over $12 million this weekend. That should be enough for second place, but it will be close.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back has to deal with direct competition during its sophomore stint. Granted, it did earn better reviews than Inferno, but its reviews are still bad enough that its legs will take a hit as a result. I don’t think it will collapse, but a 50% drop off to $11 million is likely. The film needed to do better than this to justify its $60 million price-tag.

The Accountant should remain in fourth place with just over $7 million this weekend for a three-week total of $60 million. It will have almost covered its entire production budget domestically, so it will only need to match its domestic numbers internationally to break even on the home market. It is too soon to tell if that will happen, but the film has yet to have breakout success in any major market.

Ouija: Origin of Evil will round out the top five with just under $7 million. Being the only horror film in the top five will help its legs over Halloween weekend, even though it only managed a C from CinemaScore.

- Inferno Comparisons

Filed under: Weekend Preview, Inferno, Ouija: Origin of Evil, The Accountant, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween, Madea, Da Vinci Code