Dreamworks Animation hopes to jolt the box office from a poor President’s Day weekend with the release of franchise finale How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. We also have the nationwide expansion of the wrestling biopic Fighting with My Family entering the ring. You can peruse my detailed prediction posts on each of them here:
https://toddmthatcher.com/2019/02/14/fighting-with-my-family-box-office-prediction/
Dragon should have zero trouble opening atop the charts with my mid 40s projection. That puts it in range with its two predecessors.
The fight for the #2 spot could get interesting. This post holiday frame often sees large drops for holdovers. I expect that will apply to current champ Alita: Battle Angel and Isn’t It Romantic in particular. Family has sleeper potential, but I have it falling below Angel and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, with Romantic rounding out the top five.
And here are those estimates for a weekend ending with crowning Oscar winners:
1. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Predicted Gross: $44.7 million
2. Alita: Battle Angel
Predicted Gross: $12.9 million
3. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
Predicted Gross: $11.2 million
4. Fighting with My Family
Predicted Gross: $10.8 million
5. Isn’t It Romantic
Predicted Gross: $6.1 million
Box Office Results (February 15–18)
As mentioned, this holiday weekend marked the poorest one for President’s Day (with Valentine’s Day falling on Thursday) in a decade and a half. And it was especially weak considering this frame last year marked the massive debut of Black Panther. That said, some features managed to exceed my expectations while one in particular definitely didn’t.
Alita: Battle Angel took in $33.5 million from Friday to Monday and $42.2 million counting its Thursday earnings. This is well above my respective predictions of $19.7 million and $24.8 million. So while I certainly failed to give the science fiction action tale its due, this is still underwhelming considering its reported gigantic budget.
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part dropped to second with $27.7 million, on target with my $27.8 million take. It’s made $62 million in two weeks.
Rom com satire Isn’t It Romantic premiered in third with $16.6 million and $22.8 million since its midweek rollout. That topped my expectations of $14.3 million and $20.7 million.
In its sophomore outing, What Men Want was fourth at $12.2 million (I said $13 million). The total is $37 million.
Finally, Blumhouse horror sequel Happy Death Day 2U opened in fifth and that was surprising. I thought it even had at a shot at first, but it earned a measly $11 million over the long weekend and $14.7 million counting Wednesday and Thursday numbers. My forecasts of $22 million and $28.6 million were a little off… However, the silver lining for its studio is that it only cost about $9 million.
And that does it for now, folks! Until next time…
