Weekend Forecast for February 17-19, 2017
By Reagen Sulewski
February 17, 2017
The Cure For Wellness sees Hollywood get delightfully weird with a gothic horror thriller. Gore Verbinski directs the film, starring Dane DeHaan as a young executive tasked to retrieve his company's CEO from a Swiss health retreat, which employs a strange variety of... unconventional treatments. After an unsuccessful visit, DeHaan finds himself as a patient in the retreat, where strange visions and crazy characters torment his very sanity.
Filmed in various tones of grey, aqua and beige, it's got that “classic horror look” and seems to be about as close as we'll get to a Bioshock movie in the near future, full of body horror and grim, dark scenery. For those people seeking out a waking nightmare of a film, this is exactly what they'll be looking for, but it's a very naturally off-putting film and unlikely to breakthrough in any significant way. It reminds a bit of Dark City, albeit in a real world, not sci-fi setting. This should be around a $7 million opening.
The door is then wide open for a repeat performance at the top for the LEGO Batman movie, which opened to a solid $53 million. The spinoff of 2014's The LEGO Movie, it's opened the door to a new universe of movies, though one can imagine the well running dry fairly quickly. It's also a nice bright spot for DC films, although a bit of an embarrassment to the live-action division that they're being beaten so handily by plastic. A decent second weekend of $33 million seems likely.
The BDSM fan-fiction of Fifty Shades Darker took a huge hit in its second entry of the franchise, opening to just barely over half of the first film's $85 million, with a $46 million debut. Things likely get much worse from here, as the original film took a massive three-quarters hit in its second weekend as looky-loos abandoned the film in droves. The hit should be less this time as we're dealing with smaller numbers and more of a known quantity, but the majority of people who wanted to sit through this glorified late-night Cinemax soft-core have already seen it. It should slide down to about $15 million.
A franchise moving in the opposite direction is John Wick, which saw its sequel open to over double it's original, with $30 million. The Keanu Reeves action film filled with world building and elaborately choreographed gunplay gained a huge following in digital release and has a chance for a Taken-like run as a series of films. It should have a decent second weekend with $17 million.
Split gave up its top spot after three weekends, having dropped to $9 million but breaking the $100 million milestone. It seems headed for $150 million domestic, and sets the stage for an M. Night Shyamalan implosion four films from now. Give it $5 million this weekend.
Hidden Figures expanded its box office lead among Best Picture nominated films, separating from La La Land by several million. In the last weekend leading into the Oscars, that gap should increase by another couple of million, as the space race/civil rights combo movie picks up another $6 million.
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Forecast: Weekend of February 17-19, 2017
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of
Sites |
Changes in Sites
from Last |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
The LEGO Batman Movie
|
4,088
|
No Change
|
33.2
|
|
2
|
John Wick Chapter 2
|
3,113
|
No Change
|
17.6
|
|
3
|
Fifty Shades Darker
|
3,715
|
+5
|
15.1
|
|
4
|
Fist Fight
|
3,185
|
New
|
14.8
|
|
5
|
The Great Wall
|
3,326
|
New
|
12.4
|
|
6
|
A Cure For Wellness
|
2,704
|
New
|
6.8
|
|
7
|
Hidden Figures
|
2,217
|
-450
|
6.3
|
|
8
|
Split
|
2,442
|
-519
|
5.4
|
|
9
|
A Dog's Purpose
|
2,391
|
-634
|
4.2
|
|
10
|
La La Land
|
1,587
|
-478
|
3.6
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
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