A record breaking September (thanks to a certain clown) draws to a close in a busy weekend with the two highest profile debuts being Tom Cruise’s American Made and sci-fi horror remake/sequel Flatliners. You can peruse my detailed prediction posts on both of them here:
https://toddmthatcher.com/2017/09/20/american-made-box-office-prediction/
https://toddmthatcher.com/2017/09/21/flatliners-box-office-prediction/
They aren’t the only newbies this weekend. There’s the thriller ‘Til Death Do Us Part with Taye Diggs and Christian themed drama A Question of Faith. As of this writing, there are screen counts on neither. As I see it, both could potentially over perform, but I’ll say $2.8 million for Death and $1.2 million for Faith. Those numbers could change, but right now it puts both well outside the top 5.
There could be a real battle for #1. If American Made manages to debut in the high teens to low 20s, it should capture that spot. However, my mid teens estimated debut puts it in the runner-up spot behind the second weekend of Kingsman: The Golden Circle. I expect Circle to experience a larger drop than the 49% one that its predecessor had. It should fall one spot to third.
With a considerably lower than anticipated opening, The Lego Ninjago Movie is likely to be fourth, though it may have a smallish decline due to lack of family options.
This brings us to the five spot. I am not expecting much out of Flatliners and the Emma Stone/Steve Carell Oscar hopeful Battle of the Sexes is expanding to over 1000 screens. I believe that could create a close race between them, though I’ll give Flatliners the edge.
And with that, I’ll do a top 6 predictions this weekend:
1. Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Predicted Gross: $17.4 million (representing a drop of 55%)
2. American Made
Predicted Gross: $15.5 million
3. It
Predicted Gross: $15.1 million (representing a drop of 49%)
4. The Lego Ninjago Movie
Predicted Gross: $12.6 million (representing a drop of 37%)
5. Flatliners
Predicted Gross: $6.3 million
6. Battle of the Sexes
Predicted Gross: $5.2 million
Box Office Results (September 22-24)
Kingsman: The Golden Circle took the gold this weekend with $39 million, a touch below my $43.6M projection. The sequel to the acclaimed 2015 sleeper hit didn’t receive the critical appreciation of the first, but it did manage to open slightly above its predecessor’s $36 million.
It dropped to second after two weeks on top with $29.7 million (I was right there with my $29.8M forecast) for a staggering tally of $266 million overall.
While Warner Bros has been celebrating the considerable accomplishments of Pennywise and The Losers, there was little to boast about with The Lego Ninjago Movie. The animated feature opened to just $20.4 million in third – way below my $38.6M estimate. The studio better hope its non spin-off sequel to 2014’s The Lego Movie gets the franchise back on track.
American Assassin was fourth in its sophomore frame at $6.2 million (I said $6.9M) for $26 million total.
mother! rounded out the top five with $3.2 million for a meager $13M total and I incorrectly had it outside the top five.
That’s because I gave far too much credit to the horror pic Friend Request. I pegged it at $5.7 million, but it managed just $2 million for seventh place. One wonders if It is simply sucking the oxygen out of any genre competition (it’s part of the reason I have Flatliners rather low).
And that does it for now, folks! Until next time…
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