Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
September 6, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Yellow is their color.

The closest thing you’ll see to Hollywood skipping a weekend entirely, the post Labor Day weekend is the home of such stellar releases as Bangkok Dangerous, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star and The Covenant, all of which managed to win the weekend while opening to under $10 million. There’s just one new release this weekend and it barely makes the top ten on Friday, leaving Guardians of the Galaxy on top for a fourth week.

The Identical

2014 has been a decent year for faith-based releases, but The Identical is closer to Mom’s Night Out ($10.4 million total) than God’s Not Dead ($60.7 million total) with just $534,000 on Friday. One of the worst reviewed films of 2014, the Christianized story of an Elvis-ish (Elvish?) character (starring a former Elvis impersonator!) and his separated at birth twin will earn $1.7 million on the weekend in a best case scenario. The audiences for these films are devoted, but your movie still has to be good.

Guardians of the Galaxy

While you would have very likely been laughed at if you had said six months ago that this movie would be the 2014 box office champ to date, here we are. Guardians of the Galaxy adds another $2.7 million to its total, which now stands at $287.1 million. It’s not crossing $300 million this weekend, but next week it should be the first 2014 entry to do so. A weekend of $9.6 million is enough GotG to earn its fourth weekend at the top out of six weeks in release.

Keep checking Box Office Prophets tomorrow for John Hamann’s weekend analysis, and our MMQB discussion featuring reaction to the weekend, thoughts on the summer and Super Bowl predictions.