After a record-breaking Easter weekend for two iconic superheroes, the first weekend of April brings a slowdown as only two non major studio pics debut. They are faith-based sequel God’s Not Dead 2 and Mike Epps’ Purge parody Meet the Blacks. You can read my detailed prediction posts on each here:
https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/03/24/gods-not-dead-2-box-office-prediction/
https://toddmthatcher.com/2016/03/28/meet-the-blacks-box-office-prediction/
Let’s get the newbies out of the way first. I look for God’s Not Dead 2 to open within the same range as its predecessor two years ago. That should leave it in a close battle with the second weekend of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which I have falling by almost half.
As for Meet the Blacks, it’s only opening on about 1000 screens and I believe it will be lucky to reach $5 million. My $3.7 million estimate for it leaves it outside the top five.
Zootopia should continue its smallish declines and retain the #2 position. Miracles from Heaven should round out the top five, as long as Blacks doesn’t exceed my estimate.
That leaves the biggest question of the week: how much will Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice drop in its sophomore weekend? Down below, you can read all about its record-setting debut. Critics have not been kind and its B Cinemascore grade indicates that even audiences aren’t exactly loving it. Here’s how some other tent poles dipped in their second weekends (all of these titles made between $147-$191M out of the gate):
Avengers: Age of Ultron – 59%
Iron Man 3 – 58%
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 – 72%
The Dark Knight Rises – 61%
Spider-Man 3 – 61%
Furious 7 – 59%
Then there’s 2013’s Man of Steel, which serves as Justice‘s predecessor. It didn’t have the greatest buzz either and dropped 64% after a $116 million debut.
So where does that leave us? I actually believe BvS is going to fall right around with where Man of Steel did (63-65 percent).
And with that, my top five predictions for the weekend:
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Predicted Gross: $59.1 million (representing a drop of 64%)
2. Zootopia
Predicted Gross: $14.9 million (representing a drop of 38%)
3. God’s Not Dead 2
Predicted Gross: $9.6 million
4. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
Predicted Gross: $9.4 million (representing a drop of 47%)
5. Miracles from Heaven
Predicted Gross: $5.7 million (representing a drop of 41%)
Box Office Results (March 25-27)
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice accomplished having the seventh largest opening of all time and kick starting Warner Bros. Justice League features and intended spin-offs to the tune of a $166 million debut. My prognosis? $166.4M! Pretty happy with this one. While critics were mostly not kind (a 29% Rotten Tomatoes score), audience anticipation was clearly peaked. It just missed being its studio’s biggest opener (the final Harry Potter did $169M), but it did set the record for the month of March and highest Easter performer. The big question, as mentioned above, is how far it falls in weekend #2 and I’m predicting it’ll be rather precipitous.
Zootopia took the runner-up spot with $24 million (in line with my $23.4M estimate) for a four-week tally of $241 million.
Opening in third and with higher than anticipated numbers was long gestating comedy sequel My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 with $17.8 million, above my $13.1M projection. This is a positive result considering reviews were poor and it had been 14 years since the mega hit original. This was never expected to approach the amazing $241M the first Wedding pocketed and it certainly won’t, but overall this is a fine result.
In a close battle for fourth among features in their second weekends, Miracles from Heaven edged out The Divergent Series: Allegiant. The faith-based Heaven capitalized on the Easter weekend with $9.6 million (a bit below my $10.9M estimate) for a total of $34M. Allegiant continued its plummet with $9.4 million (under my $12.7M projection) for an overall gross of $46M. It may top out at just around $65M – its two predecessors made $150M and $130M, respectively. Ouch.
And that’ll do it for now, friends! Until next time…
Yo Todd!
I can’t get a read on God’s Not Dead 2, so I’m going to play it safe with $10M
As for Meet the Blacks, I’m seeing BOMB written all over it – $2.3M
Joe – are you SURE you don’t wanna go with like $60M on Meet the Blacks??
HAHAHA, maybe if it was Meet the Joe Blacks and Brad Pitt played multiple parts, and the Avengers showed up 😀