Friday Estimates: Hustlers Helps the Box Office Get Lucky on Friday the 13th

September 14, 2019

Hustlers

Hustlers did surprisingly well to earn first place on Friday with an estimated $13.1 million. This puts it on pace for $32 million over the full weekend, which is more than enough for the biggest opening in STX Entertainment’s history and the biggest live-action opening in Jennifer Lopez’s career. It is not that far behind Crazy Rich Asians’ five-day opening and will also be Constance Wu’s best opening. There’s more good news: The film’s reviews are the best in the top ten at 87% positive and STX Entertainment has tended to have a lot of success giving their films long legs. The Bad Moms franchise is evidence of that. On the downside, the movie only managed a B minus from CinemaScore, but it is a dark comedy and those can be divisive. Additionally, while it earned first place on Friday, it won’t stay there for long.

It: Chapter Two also topped expectations with $12.8 million, putting it on pace for just over $40 million over the full weekend. This would be just a 56% decline, which is excellent for a horror movie, especially a horror sequel. Granted, the movie did cost about twice as much as its predecessor did and it won’t earn as much at the box office, it will still be fantastically profitable.

Angel Has Fallen was next with $1.2 million on Friday, just ahead of Good Boys’ Friday score of $1.16 million. They might change places over the rest of the weekend. Either way, they are both on pace for $4 million, or a little more.

The Goldfinch opened in fifth place with $870,000. Not only is this much weaker than expected, but it isn’t enough to stay in the top five for long, as The Lion King was right behind with $836,000. Even if The Goldfinch has better legs than its reviews and its B plus CinemaScore would indicate, it is still going to miss our prediction by a factor of two with just under $3 million. Not only will it miss the Mendoza Line, it will barely get halfway there.

Filed under: Friday Estimates, It, The Lion King, Good Boys, It: Chapter Two, The Goldfinch, Angel Has Fallen, Hustlers, Bad Moms, Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu