It’s Christmas Week at the box office as the merrily confusing week officially gets underway tomorrow! We have two newbies debuting on Christmas Day with the Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly comedy Holmes & Watson and Adam McKay biopic Vice starring Christian Bale as Dick Cheney. You can peruse my detailed prediction posts on both of them here:
https://toddmthatcher.com/2018/12/18/holmes-watson-box-office-prediction/
https://toddmthatcher.com/2018/12/19/vice-box-office-prediction/
As I see it, both risk not making the top five as I deduce Watson will premiere with low double digits over the traditional three-day portion of the frame with Vice under that. Returning holiday offerings often see increases in their grosses from the previous weekend. I expect that to benefit titles such as Mary Poppins Returns, Bumblebee, Spider–Man: Into the Spider–Verse, and The Mule as well as Second Act and The Grinch further down the chart.
Poppins came in below expectations this past weekend. If you’d asked me a week ago, I would’ve strongly suspected the Disney sequel would rise to top spot this weekend and knock current champ Aquaman down to second. Now, even though I expect the waterlogged superhero to have a decline in its sophomore frame, I feel it should manage to maintain the #1 position pretty easily.
As I close the box office predicting year out, let’s expand the list to my top 10 projections as I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
1. Aquaman
Predicted Gross: $53.8 million
2. Mary Poppins Returns
Predicted Gross: $26.5 million
3. Bumblebee
Predicted Gross: $21.4 million
4. Spider–Man: Into the Spider–Verse
Predicted Gross: $17.3 million
5. The Mule
Predicted Gross: $11.5 million
6. Holmes & Watson
Predicted Gross: $11.3 million (Friday to Sunday); $23 million (Tuesday to Sunday)
7. Second Act
Predicted Gross: $7.9 million
8. The Grinch
Predicted Gross: $7.3 million
9. Vice
Predicted Gross: $7.2 million (Friday to Sunday); $14.8 million (Tuesday to Sunday)
10. Ralph Breaks the Internet
Predicted Gross: $5.2 million
Box Office Results (December 21–23)
The pre-Christmas frame saw a slew of new debuts and they nearly all came in with less than I anticipated. It’s worth noting that most of these holidays numbers are not yet final and I’ll fill in those verified grosses once they occur.
As expected, Aquaman logged the #1 spot with $68 million, under my $77.3 million. I expect the DC effort to dip in the mid 20s this coming weekend. When factoring in early preview numbers, it’s made $72.7 million thus far.
Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns opened in second with less with anticipated returns grossing $23.5 million over the weekend and $32.3 million since its Wednesday beginning. That’s quite a bit under my respective projections of $34.8 million and $52.2 million. The well-reviewed sequel will hope for leggy earnings as the weeks roll along.
Bumblebee took third with $21.6 million, premiering under my $26.2 million prediction. The Transformers prequel actually had the best critical reaction of the newcomers and also has a shot of playing well in the coming weeks.
Spider–Man: Into the Spider–Verse fell to fourth in its sophomore outing with $16.6 million (I was higher at $20.1 million). The acclaimed animated hero tale is up to $64 million.
Clint Eastwood’s The Mule rounded out the top five at $9.5 million (I said $10.2 million) for $35 million at press time.
Jennifer Lopez’s romantic comedy Second Act debuted in seventh place with $6.4 million. I was right there at $6.5 million.
Finally, the poorly reviewed Steve Carell drama Welcome to Marwen was a massive flop in ninth place with $2.3 million, not even matching my $3.8 million take. This is quite the costly bomb for its studio.
And that does it for now, folks! Until next time…
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