Box Office Predictions: April 1-3

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:

1. 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…