Friday Box Office Analysis

By Kim Hollis

March 16, 2019

Buddy comedy!

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Captain Marvel just keeps flying.

As a final, emotional trailer for Avengers: Endgame was released this week and James Gunn was returned to the helm of Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Captain Marvel continues to develop as one of the most important members of the MCU, especially as we know the original Avengers will come to some sort of a finish and a new set of heroes will become the focus. If we read the clues in the films and the trailers correctly, Carol Danvers is about to be their new leader.

With a $19 million total yesterday and a 69 percent decline from last Friday, it might seem like Captain Marvel had a slight slowdown, but remember that it had more than $20 million in Thursday night preview screenings. As we look at the remainder of the weekend, Captain Marvel will mount a great comeback and wind up right in the $65-70 million range. By the way, it crossed the $200 million mark yesterday, which means it's already almost caught last year's Ant-Man and the Wasp in a week's time. By the end of the weekend, it will have also passed Doctor Strange and (probably) Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Dang!

Second place for Friday goes not to Wonder Park (though it will finish there for the weekend) but instead to the teen weeper Five Feet Apart, a movie I didn't know existed until I was looking at movie options at our local dine-in movie place (spoilers: there was nothing worth seeing that I haven't already watched). The Lionsgate film featuring Riverdale's Cole Sprouse and Edge of Seventeen supporting actress Haley Lu Richardson earned $5.4 million yesterday, almost earning back its $7 million budget. All things considered, that's pretty solid. This is an original screenplay, so it didn't have a built-in audience like a book-based film would. Its weekend should come in in the $14.5 million range.




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Wonder Park, the poorly reviewed animated flick that used pull quotes from... movie theater companies in its advertising, also earned $5.4 million yesterday. It lost by about $16,000 for the day, but the weekend will be better since it's solidly aimed at the family audience that might be a little too young for Captain Marvel. Its three-day total ought to be $18 million or so, but that's less than was expected. This one had a long road to production, and unfortunately, the result just wasn't exciting to much of anyone.

Pantelion is the Spanish-language film division of Lionsgate, and they often have success releasing smaller scale films to that specific demographic. No Manches Frida 2, apparently a sequel to a popular romantic comedy, earned $1.3 million from just 472 locations. There's nothing wrong with a US/Canada total of $3 million or so, especially as it'll be making its main money from Mexico and Latin America.

Our final new release of the weekend is the sci-fi thriller Captive State, featuring John Goodman and my doppelgänger Vera Farmiga. Arriving with little fanfare and a 50 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, it earned $1.3 million yesterday (actually a few thousand less than No Manches Frida 2) and will finish around $2.8 million as well.


     


 
 

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