Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
October 1, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Boo to you!

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

The latest entry from Tim Burton, an adaptation of a young adult novel that was practically written to be adapted into a movie directed by Burton, is the top film on Friday with $9 million. Burton’s name still has some cachet, especially when he goes for a more “commercial” product, which this essentially is. While we’ve long since exhausted the supply of A-list young adult books, the hunt is still on for the next big franchise. While there are two additional novels in this series, giving it franchise potential, the reported $110 million budget is a concern for its future. This weekend, however, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will take the weekend handily with a weekend of $27.5 million.

Deepwater Horizon

The action’d up story of the real-life disaster earns $7.1 million on Friday. More about the escape from the burning oil rig than the potential environmental effects of the biggest oil spill in history, I credit the opening weekend to Mark Wahlberg, and that’s largely it. Deepwater Horizon did get good reviews, so I’’m sure that drew some people in whose appetite for films based on real life events was not sated after Sully, but Miss Peregrine will still take the weekend easily. Look for a total of $19.3 million on the weekend.

Masterminds

The long delayed (I first saw a trailer during the opening weekend of Mad Max: Fury Road) Masterminds earned just $2.3 million on Friday, which really, was to be expected for the poorly reviewed comedy that sat on the shelf for over a year (due to Relativity’s bankruptcy, but still). The hilarious cast does not have any true box office draws, and it’ll be late night Netflix viewing a few months from now after we all forget that this actually got a theatrical release. Masterminds will end up with about $6.3 million for the weekend.

Queen of Katwe

Expanding from 52 theaters last weekend to 1,242 this weekend, Queen of Katwe surprises on Friday with an eighth place finish with about $700,000. Starring Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo, it’s a biopic of a young Ugandan chess prodigy that is receiving rave reviews for both its subject matter and Nyong’o’s performance. Keep this one in the back of your mind as we get deeper into awards season. This weekend, it looks to earn about $2.1 million.