Friday Box Office Analysis
By Kim Hollis
July 29, 2017
I don't want to live in a world where The Emoji Movie is the #1 movie in the country. And yet, here we are.
Yes, The Emoji Movie was the top earning film in multiplexes yesterday. It achieved that lofty position despite vicious reviews (two critics out of 33 liked it at Rotten Tomatoes) and a crappy-for-animation B Cinemascore. There's really no reason for this movie to exist, but Sony apparently believed people needed to see these little things that live in our phones on the big screen. The right thing for people to do would have been to ignore it. Instead, enough went to see it that the $50 million budget might be justified. We shouldn't be encouraging studios like this, people!
Anyway, The Emoji Movie earned $10.1 million yesterday, $2 million more than the closest competitor, Dunkirk. That amount includes $900,000 from sneaks. Let me reinforce for you that this means $900,000 worth of people were excited enough about The Emoji movie to go see it the instant it hit screens. I'd feel better if I knew they just accidentally wandered into the theater somehow. The weekend total for this monstrosity should come in at around $27.3 million.
There's a chance yet that Dunkirk could still hold at #1 for the three-day portion of the weekend, so we'll certainly root for that. Its $8 million total yesterday represents a 60% drop from Friday-to-Friday, perhaps a bit high for something so well regarding, but we have to remember that Christopher Nolan has his own fanboys who rush out to see his films. It should recover some over the rest of the weekend to about $25 million, but we'll really, really root for better.
The second new wide release of the weekend, Charlize Theron's Atomic Blonde, came in with $7.1 million for Friday. That number does include a decent $1.5 million in Thursday sneaks. Considering the tiny $30 million budget, there is nothing wrong with the performance of this one. Look for a weekend total around $16.7 million.
For holdovers, Girls Trip did pretty well with $6.2 million and a 47% decline. It should recover some throughout the weekend from the drop to a second weekend of $18.6 million.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, on the other hand, continues to disappoint. It earned just $1.8 million, falling a heavy duty 72% from last Friday. It will manage another $6.8 million before falling off the face of the Earth and living on as a hotly debated film among cult movie lovers.
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Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
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Projected
Rank |
Film |
Estimated Gross |
|
1
|
The Emoji Movie
|
27.3
|
|
2
|
Dunkirk
|
25.1
|
|
3
|
Girls Trip
|
18.6
|
|
4
|
Atomic Blonde
|
16.7
|
|
5
|
Spider-Man: Homecoming
|
15.5
|
|
6
|
War for the Planet of the Apes
|
12.5
|
|
7
|
Despicable Me 3
|
9.1
|
|
8
|
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
|
6.8
|
|
9
|
Baby Driver
|
4.4
|
|
10
|
Wonder Woman
|
3.2
|
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