Weekend Predictions: Jumanji Takes on Jedi

December 20, 2017

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Five films are opening wide this week, two of which, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and The Greatest Showman, debut on Wednesday. We will have full predictions at the usual time, but we should at least discuss these two films before everyone has a chance to see them.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is about four high school students who get sucked into a video game. The film’s reviews are deceptively good. While its Tomatometer Score is 80% positive, the average score by the critics is just 6.2 out of 10, so while a lot of critics like it, very few loved it. That said, it is still the best wide release of the week and there is a lot of star power here. It will easily be the biggest new release of the week and could earn $60 million to $70 million over the next five days. That said, it is still going to open in a distant second place tonight, with Star Wars: The Last Jedi still dominating the box office.

The Greatest Showman will open in third place, mainly because there is no competition today. However, it won’t stay in third place for very long. The reviews are mixed and it is a musical and those rarely perform well at the box office. Granted, the biggest musical of all time, Beauty and the Beast was released earlier this year and La La Land earned $150 million after opening roughly this time last year. However, those films are the exceptions, not the rule. If Greatest Showman is lucky, it will be able to bring in about $25 million during its five-day weekend, but even if it falls to hit $20 million, it will still earn a spot in the top five.

- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Comparisons
- The Greatest Showman Comparisons

Filed under: Weekend Preview, The Greatest Showman, Star Wars Ep. VIII: The Last Jedi, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle