Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
March 12, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com

There's always that one friend who ruins the selfie.

Four new releases entered theaters on Friday, three of which you wouldn’t really be at fault if you didn't know they existed, which gives Zootopia an easy second weekend at the top as it crosses $100 million.

10 Cloverfield Lane

The Cloverfield…sequel? Spinoff? Successor? earned a solid $9 million on Friday, which is more than the other three new releases combined. 10 Cloverfield Lane is a strong second place to Zootopia on the weekend, and is seeing great reviews and word-of-mouth, with one critic even claiming John Goodman deserves an Oscar nomination. Yes, really. Thanks to the positive response, it’s not as likely to be as front-loaded as Cloverfield was back in 2008 (a 2.3 multiplier after a $17.1 million Friday), but it will be penalized a tad from not exactly making itself clear what kind of movie it is, as the previews just mainly set up the premise. Still, a weekend of $24.3 million is quite good, especially with a reported $15 million budget.

The Perfect Match

Bomb #1 on the weekend is African-American targeted comedy The Perfect Match, with $1.5 million on Friday. To be fair, it only got into 925 theaters so it’s in third place behind Zootopia and 10 Cloverfield Lane when it comes to per screen average, but it’s a small consolation. Let’s go with $4.3 million on the weekend.

The Young Messiah

Faith-based entry The Young Messiah is your second flop of the weekend with $1.3 million. And that's all I've got to say about that. $3.8 million is pretty much the best it could hope for.

The Brothers Grimsby

Lastly, Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy The Brothers Grimsby only comes in with $1.2 million on Friday. This one has no chance of making back its reported $35 million cost, even when you count worldwide grosses (it was released in the UK a few weeks ago and wasn’t even a hit there). Give it $3.3 million for the weekend.

Zootopia

With another $12 million (down 38.3% from last week) on its second Friday, Zootopia crosses $100 million and has an easy path to a second weekend at the top. Much like last weekend, Friday will be the worst day of the frame, as the animated release had a textbook 3.85 weekend multiplier. The same feat here would mean a second weekend of $46.1 million as it cruises towards the $200 million mark.