Weekend Forecast for August 19-21, 2016
By Reagen Sulewski
August 18, 2016
War Dogs tackles a controversial period in America's War on Terror in the early 2000s, with Jonah Hill and Miles Teller playing two real-life business men who earn themselves a $300 million contract to supply arms in Afghanistan. Of course, it's a comedy. Todd Phillips directs with a "can you believe this happened?" bent, trying to point this towards being this year's Wolf of Wall Street or The Big Short. I think that's a bit ambitious territory for this film, which seems more tonally consistent with being from the director of Old School and the Hangover films than something worthy of Oscar contention. Indeed, reviews have it as a mediocre effort with a facile treatment of the material, which if anything, was more salacious than what the movie puts forward.
While Hill has developed something of a critical following, it's been mostly as a supporting character, making his lead role here problematic to the film's success. Teller, meanwhile, has the buzz as a young actor to watch, but has struggled with any box office success, with prominent roles in the new Fantastic Four flop, and the Divergent series, one of the first series to effectively get canceled to cable. I project this out as a bit of a disappointment with $10 million to start.
Ready to seize first spot for a third weekend, if it's there for the taking, is Suicide Squad despite its precipitous drops. Warner Bros. attempt at expanding their universe started well but has shown tremendous weakness since then. Losing two-thirds of its opening weekend, it may find itself running short of a $300 million domestic total after a $133 million start. This is, to put it lightly, something of a disaster. With no help coming from revisionist word-of-mouth, this should fall again to about $15 million.
Sausage Party, last weekend's second place film, ought to see similar drops more due to demographics than anything else. The raunchy and naughty animated film used up its shock value right off the bat, and the curiosity factor is likely not present at this point. I see a drop to about $13 million in the cards for Seth Rogen and company.
While The Jungle Book comparison was never fair, Pete's Dragon significantly underperformed in its debut with $21 million. I expect this was largely due to a lack of familiarity with the source material, and just a handful of gripping action scenes versus the latter's film's non-stop go. The family aspect of the film should help it it with legs, and a $12 miliion second weekend makes sense here.
Following along in returning films are Jason Bourne, which should grab $8 million, Bad Moms, a genuinely leggy film last weekend, with $8 million itself and The Secret Life of Pets, earning $6 million in its seventh weekend.
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Forecast: Weekend of August 19-21, 2016
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of
Sites |
Changes in Sites
from Last |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
Kubo and the Two Strings
|
3,260
|
New
|
18.1
|
|
2
|
Suicide Squad
|
3,924
|
-331
|
15.6
|
|
3
|
Ben-Hur
|
3,084
|
New
|
13.5
|
|
4
|
Sausage Party
|
3,103
|
No Change
|
13.0
|
|
5
|
Pete's Dragon
|
3,702
|
No Change
|
12.4
|
|
6
|
War Dogs
|
3,258
|
New
|
9.9
|
|
7
|
Jason Bourne
|
2,880
|
-648
|
8.6
|
|
8
|
Bad Moms
|
2,811
|
-377
|
8.5
|
|
9
|
The Secret Life of Pets
|
2,397
|
-561
|
5.9
|
|
10
|
Florence Foster Jenkins
|
1,528
|
No Change
|
4.6
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
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