Friday Estimates: Coco Opens Strong, But Moana was Stronger

November 25, 2017

Coco

It’s the Saturday after Black Friday, so things are returning to normal. Coco is leading the way, which no one should be terribly surprised by. It earned $13.24 million on Wednesday, which was about 15% lower than Moana’s opening day. It held on better on Thursday, cutting the gap to about 10% with $8.93 million. However, by Friday, it was behind Moana by 15% again. That said, if is maintains this pace throughout the rest of the weekend it will earn $48 million / $71 million during its opening weekend. This is almost exactly as I predicted and more than enough to make Disney very happy. Furthermore, thanks to 96% positive review and an amazing A plus from CinemaScore, as well as no real competition for the next two weeks, the film should have excellent legs.

Justice League was in second place on Friday with $16.5 million, after earning $18.85 million over the previous two days. This puts it on pace for $41 million / $60 million over the weekend and over $170 million after just ten days of release. The film will need a little help over the holidays to get to $250 million domestically, which is not good for a film that cost $300 million to make, although it’s doing much better overseas.

Wonder earned a combined $9.9 million on Wednesday and Thursday before adding $8.73 million on Friday. As expected, it had the best hold in the top five, but its Friday was a little weaker than I predicted and the film will likely get $22 million over the three-day weekend. It will still be at nearly $70 million after two weeks of release and it remains on pace to get to $100 million domestically.

Roman J. Israel, Esq was one of the few films that grew from Wednesday to Thursday, going from $755,000 to $930,000, while it added $1.8 million on Friday. This is lower than predicted, but not a complete disaster. Its legs won’t be long, as it only manged mixed reviews and a mere B from CinemaScore, while its theater average will be low enough that some theaters will be dropping it before The Last Jedi debuts in theaters.

One last note, Call Me by Your Name opened on Friday and ... wow! It earned $161,000 in just four theaters. At first, I assumed that was the weekend estimate, but that’s just Friday’s number. It is on pace to be the first film to crack $100,000 on the theater average chart since La La Land did it last year.

Wednesday Box Office Chart
Thursday Box Office Chart
Friday Box Office Chart

- Coco Comparisons

Filed under: Friday Estimates, Coco, Justice League, Wonder, Call Me by Your Name, Roman J. Israel, Esq.