Weekend Predictions: Can Escape Find Room in the Top Five?
January 3, 2019
It is the first weekend of 2019 and there are not many new releases to talk about. In fact, there’s just one: Escape Room. It should do relatively well, given its low-budget nature, but it won’t knock Aquaman out of first place. In fact, it very likely won’t knock Mary Poppins Returns out of second place. This weekend last year, Insidious: The Last Key opened with nearly $30 million and it wasn’t even able to earn first place. This year, no film will match The Last Key, so 2019 will start on a losing note.
Aquaman should avoid falling more than 50% this weekend and could come close to $30 million. I don’t think it will get there, but $28 million over the weekend would still be more than enough to celebrate. It will be more than enough to push it out of last place in the DCEU and keep $300 million as a reasonable long-term goal.
Mary Poppins Returns will be next with between $18 million and $19 million over the weekend, which will be enough to top its $130 million production budget. The film is doing well enough to break even, eventually, but it certainly missed high expectations.
Escape Room reportedly cost around $10 million to make, so it doesn’t need to be even a midlevel hit to break even. Sony is predicting $10 million over the weekend, but studios tend to low-ball predictions like this, because then they can brag about the results, even if the film misses their real expectations. I think that’s the case here. The film won’t be a midlevel hit, but with reviews that are currently right on the overall positive level, it shouldn’t struggle either. Look for an opening weekend of between $13 million and $14 million.
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse should be right behind with just under $13 million over the weekend for a four-week total of $133 million. The studio’s share of the domestic box office is closing in on its $90 million production budget and depending on how much Sony spent on advertising, vs. how much partners spent, it could break even in just a couple of weeks.
Bumblebee should be right behind with just over $12 million. The film hasn’t quite matched its $102 million production budget, but it will be close, and while it will fall out of the top five before it gets there, it will get there.
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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Aquaman, Bumblebee, Escape Room, DC Extended Universe