Friday Box Office Analysis

By Kim Hollis

February 3, 2018

Oh no. Super Bowl got me.

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That greatest of weekends has arrived. Yes, Super Bowl Sunday is almost here, and that means that no studio is brave enough to release a film wide. Well, one studio is, but it's clearly a movie they neither cared about nor supported. Also, it's not very good. So here we are, with a weekend where our #1 film is likely to come in under $10 million. Yeesh. Well, Jumanji might manage to save the day.

Yes, the horror film Winchester was on top yesterday by a slim margin, defeating last week's new release Maze Runner: The Death Cure by a few hundred thousand dollars. With $3.6 million on Friday (including $615,000), this is obviously a film that was abandoned by Lionsgate and thrown to the Superbowl Eagles and Patriots to devour.

Featuring Academy Award winner Helen Mirren for some reason, Winchester wasn't screened for critics, and the ones that have managed to see it hated it. Currently, it has a 10% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and the Cinemascore is a deadly B-. There's no reason to think that it's going to hold up in the face of the biggest sports event of the year, and a weekend total of $9 million is to be expected.




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As we should have expected, Maze Runner: The Death Cure dropped precipitously in its second weekend. Unfortunately, these aren't the kind of films to have long lives in theaters. With a $3 million Friday total and a 64% decline, you'd usually be able to say that it will stabilize some over the weekend, but that's not likely to be the case. Look for a second weekend total of $9.7, which will be enough to let it pass Winchester. (Also, no one is going to care since the focus will be on football, commercials, and Justin Timberlake.)

We'll just go ahead and note the continued awesomeness of both Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and The Greatest Showman, both of which continue their ludicrous box office runs. Jumanji fell just 24% from last Friday, and its weekend total should fall somewhere in the $11.3 million range, enough to give it yet another weekend victory after falling out of that spot for a weekend.

The Greatest Showman, meanwhile, declined just 11%. Even if it has a terrible remainder of the weekend, I'd think we can expect $7.7 million from it. It's got amazing buzz and people continue to happily discover it. Way to go, Hugh Jackman, Zendaya, and Zac Efron!


Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
Projected
Rank
Film
Estimated Gross
1 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle 11.3
2 Maze Runner: The Death Cure 9.7
3 Winchester 9.0
4 The Greatest Showman 7.7
5 The Post 5.5
6 12 Strong 5.2
7 Hostiles 5.1
8 Den of Thieves 5.0
9 The Shape of Water 4.8
10 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri 3.0

     


 
 

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