Weekend Predictions: Has Summer Ended?
August 3, 2017
August has begun, but I’m starting to think Summer has already ended. The Dark Tower was expected to be the big hit of the weekend, but its reviews are a lot weaker than anticipated. Kidnap is also opening wide and its early reviews were good, but that has changed as the day has gone on. Furthermore, it’s buzz is really quiet, so its box office chances are not good. Finally Detroit is expanding wide this weekend. Its reviews are among the best we’ve seen all summer, but it is tough to go from a limited release to a wide release, so I’m not overly optimistic. This weekend last year, Suicide Squad opened with $133.68 million. It is very likely the entire box office will be less than $133.68 million this weekend. 2017 is going to get destroyed in the year-over-year comparison.
The Dark Tower is based on the Stephen King novel series of the same name. The books create a very complicated story and it was always going to be difficult to boil down the books into a movie. This is why it was in development for a decade. Unfortunately, it seems these problems were never solved, as the reviews are terrible. The bad reviews seem to have put a dent in the film’s buzz and the buzz was never great to begin with. I was hoping for at least $30 million over the weekend, but $25 million now seems out of reach. There’s even a chance it will open below $20 million. I’m not that pessimistic, but $24 million is likely as good as it is going to get.
Dunkirk will likely relinquish its hold on first place this weekend, although that’s not a sure thing. Thanks to its reviews and last week’s strong hold, it has a chance of falling by just a third to just under $18 million. I think it will fall a little bit faster to just under $17 million.
There are two factors at play with Girls Trip. Historically, films suffer a bigger decline during its second weekend of release than it does during its third. (This is true, unless a film bombs so hard it loses a huge number of theaters during its third weekend of release.) However, Girls Trip fell so little during its opening weekend that holding on significantly better seems unlikely. If the film falls exactly the same, then it will earn just over $12 million this weekend. Let’s bump it up a bit to $13 million. This will put it on pace to reach $100 million early next week.
The Emoji Movie has to deal with some of the worst reviews of the year and a summer of terrible legs. Despicable Me 3 and Cars 3 both fell more than 50%. Granted, they are both sequels and sequels tend to be more front-loaded, but they also had much better reviews. Captain Underpants wasn’t a sequel and it fell 49%, but again, it earned much better reviews. I think The Emoji Movie will perform the worst out of the four movies; in fact, a 60% decline isn’t out of the question. That would leave the film with just under $10 million, but closer to $11 million is more likely.
Up next is Detroit, which is expanding into 2,800 theaters. This is more than I was anticipating, but it might be too many. The reviews are great, but the film’s debut in limited release wasn’t fantastic. If it has the same wide theater average as The Big Sick had during its wide debut, then it will pull in just over $8 million. This might be enough to earn fifth place.
Finally there’s Kidnap, which had a difficult time getting to theaters. Early reviews were over 70% positive, which was enough to be a selling point. However, they have since dropped and are now hovering around 40% positive. This is already bad, but any lower will seriously impact its box office chances. I’m going with $8 million even, on the assumption the reviews don’t drop below 33% positive.
- The Dark Tower Comparisons
- Detroit Comparisons
- Kidnap Comparisons
Filed under: Weekend Preview, The Dark Tower, Despicable Me 3, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, Kidnap, Dunkirk, Cars 3, The Emoji Movie, Girls Trip, The Big Sick, Detroit, Stephen King