Babak Najafi – All My Life… I Wanted To Be A Blogster

During last year’s Martin Luther King holiday weekend, Taraji P. Henson had the #1 film with her Oscar nominated Hidden Figures. In 2018, she’s back in the action thriller Proud Mary. The pic finds her cast as a Boston hitwoman from director Babak Najafi, best known for making poorly received sequel London Has Fallen. Supporting players include Billy Brown, Danny Glover, Neal McDonough, and Margaret Avery.

While she’s best known for “Empire” television work, Henson’s big screen track record has been rather impressive with her roles in Figures, The Karate Kid remake, and No Good Deed.

Proud Mary could have the advantage of attracting some genre fans, as well as African Americans and females (a demographic often underserved with action flicks). I believe this could post a high teens debut, which would put it above direct genre competition The Commuter.

Proud Mary opening weekend prediction: $18.5 million (Friday to Monday estimate)

For my The Commuter prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2018/01/03/the-commuter-box-office-prediction/

For my The Post prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2018/01/04/the-post-box-office-prediction/

For my Paddington 2 prediction, click here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2018/01/03/paddington-2-box-office-prediction/

In 2013, there was a showdown of terrorism at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave pics between Olympus Has Fallen and Roland Emmerich’s White House Down. It is the latter that was expected to win the contest, but it didn’t turn out that way. Olympus debuted to $30.3 million on its way to a $98M domestic haul in the spring while its competitor opened at $24.8 million with a disappointing $73M overall gross.

While we won’t see Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx in White House Down Again, we do have London Has Fallen out next weekend. The sequel returns Gerard Butler’s Secret Service agent, Aaron Eckhart’s POTUS, Melissa Leo’s Secretary of Defense and the soothing sounds of Morgan Freeman as the Speaker of the House alongside new cast members Angela Bassett and Jackie Earle Haley.

Olympus was well liked by critics and audiences, though I’m not totally confident that a follow-up is being clamored for. I have doubts that it will match the $30M achieved by its predecessor and it probably won’t reach its reported $105 million budget domestically. I’ll say a premiere in the lower to mid 20s is the safest bet.

London Has Fallen opening weekend prediction: $24.6 million