Weekend Wrap-Up
by Tim Briody
April 29, 2018
BoxOfficeProphets.com

It's those space heroes that people like!

It happened.

Avengers: Infinity War bested not only studio estimates, but has taken the opening weekend record crown from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as Disney estimates a weekend total of $250 million.

Officially, it's just the third Avengers film, but just about every film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since the first Iron Man in 2008(!) has been building to this very moment.

Infinity War was obviously going to be huge, and $200 million was assumed to be a lock, even though 2015's Age of Ultron came in with $191.2 million (after 2012's Avengers was the first film to break the $200 million opening weekend mark.) As Kim Hollis wrote yesterday, Infinity War earned $106 million on Friday, topping both previous Avengers movies by over $20 million and even February's Black Panther by $30 million ($106 million vs. $75.8 million). The meme that went around for the last couple months calling Infinity War "the most ambitious crossover event in history" may have been good for some laughs on Twitter, but it was no joke when it came to the anticipation for this entry.

Infinity War's Friday was about $13 million behind The Force Awakens, so initial estimates based on other gargantuan openings indicated that the record was probably safe, but it was going to be close. Tracking had it between $215-$235 million and even after Friday, Disney had bumped their estimate up to $245 million, just a little short of The Force Awakens' $247.9 million. Now they're estimating a flat $250 million for the weekend after a reported Saturday gross of $83 million, the sixth best single day ever and the biggest Saturday of box office in history. There's a non-zero chance that that $250 million estimate is too low. Amazing.

I think it will go underreported, but I think it's the success and quality of Black Panther that put Infinity War over the top here. When your last movie is one of the best reviewed films of the year and the third biggest movie of all time, which indicates it expanded the audience significantly (as opposed to Age of Ultron losing $200 million from The Avengers' total), that's going to carry over into the next movie, especially when it's only a couple of months away. And conveniently enough, Black Panther was in Infinity War. Talk about striking while the iron is hot.

It's way too early to declare exactly where Infinity War is going to go from here, but don't expect another performance like Black Panther. Reviews are still good, but not as high as other MCU entries, and while the CinemaScore was an A, I'm seeing very divided opinions on social media, ranging from "loved it" to "that was definitely a thing that happened." Right now $500 million is exceedingly likely, but as we've seen multiple times with Marvel films, stranger things have happened.

Since Disney wisely moved Infinity War's release date up a weekend, everything else got the hell out of the way, so there's barely anything notable coming out for the next two weekends, until Deadpool 2 on May 18th. That's plenty of time for Infinity War to make a push into the top ten of all time, provided the bottom doesn't fall out next weekend.

We're going to hit the lightning round for the remainder of the top ten, which does include one kind of surprise.

After returning to the top last weekend, A Quiet Place drops 49% from last weekend to $10.6 million and an impressive $148.1 million after four weekends. Despite the Black Panthers and Infinity Wars, the John Krasinski directed horror/thriller is, uh, quietly, one of the biggest successes of 2018.

Amy Schumer's I Feel Pretty holds in third place with $8.1 million, down 49% from last weekend and $29.5 million after two weeks. That's a better second weekend than her last vehicle (last year's Snatched) had, but this total is a far cry from her breakout hit Trainwreck.

The Rock drops to fourth place with Rampage, taking a 65% hit from last weekend to $7.1 million and giving it $77.9 million in two weekends. The big weekend hit thanks to Infinity War probably costs it a shot at $100 million. But it's done gangbusters overseas so if they want to make a sequel, I'm sure The Rock will be game.

In the biggest surprise of the weekend, non-Infinity War division, Black Panther goes from eighth place last weekend to fifth place this week with $4.3 million down just 11% from last weekend. It's in its 11th weekend and it's in the top five. Stop it. Stop it now. This is not supposed to happen. Now having earned $688 million to date, apparently a bunch of people decided to pregame their Infinity War viewing by seeing Black Panther again. It also lost 300 more screens from last weekend, which makes this decline even more crazy. Unless the rest of its screens go next weekend, it's actually going to make it to $700 million. Unreal.

Super Troopers 2 takes one of the biggest weekend to weekend nosedives we've seen in a while, dropping 76% from last weekend to $3.6 million. While that's bad, its $22 million after two weekends is more than its total production budget and multiple times what its crowdfunding effort earned to get the film made. Probably destined to be just as big a cult classic as the first film, I look forward to Super Troopers 3 in 2035.

Blumhouse's Truth or Dare earns $3.2 million (off 59% from last weekend) and $35.3 million in three weekends. Made for just a few million, even a relative disappointment like this is still a profitable endeavor.

Blockers drops 57% from last weekend to $2.9 million and totaled $53.2 million in four weekends. The R-rated John Cena comedy only cost $21 million to make so it's a win.

In ninth place, Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One takes a big hit, falling 67% to $2.4 million in its fifth weekend, but it has earned $130.6 million to date. And wrapping up the top ten, Traffik drops 59% from last weekend and has $6.7 million after two weekends.

Beacuse Marvel decided they didn't want to wait for May this year, this weekend's top 12 films earned $296.2 million. Shockingly, that's way more than last year's $84.9 million, when the third weekend of The Fate of Furious led the box office with $19.9 million. Next weekend, the most interesting thing will still be Infinity War, but we do add the mid-tier release of a remake of Overboard, with the gender roles reversed.