Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
February 18, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The LEGO Batman movie
It’s a pretty easy second weekend at the top for The LEGO Batman movie, although it drops 48% from last Friday to $7.5 million. That’s actually alarming since The LEGO Movie had a Friday to Friday decline of just 25.1%. It should give the franchise some pause before pursuing anything else outside of The LEGO Movie 2. The good news here is with President’s Day, many schools have the day off Monday, which will help both Sunday and Monday and will send it to the brink of the $100 million mark after just two weekends (it’s already at $72.1 million after Friday). The LEGO Movie had a weekend multiplier of 3.89 in its second weekend, and I still look for something similar from LEGO Batman, though to a smaller scale now. It’s headed to a second weekend of $28.9 million.
Fifty Shades Darker
Much like the first one, the Fifty Shades of Grey sequel takes a huge drop in weekend two with a 68% drop from last Friday to $6.8 million. Despite a boosted Valentine’s Day (where it spiked to $11 million as opposed to $3-4 million every other weekday), it’s currently $40 million behind the first film (which had already earned $115 million at this point) and that gap is going to continue to widen. Based on the second weekend of Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker is looking at a second weekend of $18.8 million.
The Great Wall
The first of the new releases this weekend is The Great Wall, in third place with $5.9 million. One of the first major Chinese-American co-productions, it’s not blowing anyone away with this box office performance (Matt Damon is not really a major draw outside of the Bourne films), but it’s actually earned $224 million worldwide already (mostly in China, of course) so anything earned domestically is going to be considered gravy against its reported $150 million budget. For this weekend, give it about $16.5 million.
John Wick: Chapter 2
The bad news is the John Wick sequel dropped 62% from last Friday to $4.1 million. The good news is with $46.3 million after eight days in theaters, it has already surpassed the box office of the original. The larger than anticipated drop isn’t the best news, but I don’t see why the franchise shouldn't get at least one more movie as long as Keanu Reeves stays interested. John Wick wasn’t leggy but found an audience on DVD/digital services, and that paid off here. A second weekend of about $12.7 million is where Chapter 2 should end up this weekend.
Fist FIght
New release Fist Fight takes one one the chin with just $3.8 million on Friday. Despite a lot of advertising, the leads aren’t enough of a draw (the Barbershop series is its own thing, but people went to see Ride Along and its sequel for Kevin Hart, not Ice Cube), and the reviews were abysmal, which doesn’t help a comedy that doesn’t look that funny outside of its one note joke (teacher fight!). Fist Fight is looking for a weekend of $10.2 million.
A Cure for Wellness
The last new release, A Cure for Wellness, earns just $1.5 million on Friday. The psychological horror entry is either going to be a cult classic or simply just completely forgotten after this opening. It’s going to earn less than $4 million on the weekend.