Hugh Jackman’s Final Wolverine Movie Opens with Aplomb and “Get Out” Continues Its Success

	Film	Weekend	Opening Weekend	Current Gross
	Logan	$88.4m	$88.4m	$88.4m
	Get Out	$28.2m	$33.3m	$78m
	The Shack	$16.1m	$16.1m	$16.1m
	The LEGO Batman Movie	$11.7m	$53m	$148.6m
	John Wick: Chapter 2	$4.8m	$30.4m	$82.9m

While holdovers The LEGO Batman Movie and John Wick: Chapter 2 performed exactly as expected, newcomers Logan, The Shack, and Get Out (in its second weekend, it can still be considered a relative newcomer) all performed high above expectations, the former especially. This strong and unpredictable performance also helped propel the weekend to do about $80 million more than the same weekend last year (February 26 – 28, the ninth weekend of the year), even with fewer films in release overall. While 2017 so far has been down compared to 2016, this weekend was the first of the year to beat last year’s same weekend (not counting differing holiday weekends), which hopefully is a sign that 2017 is on its way to start performing better.

20th Century Fox

Logan, highlighting Hugh Jackman’s last outing as the titular mutant who goes by the moniker Wolverine, performed astonishingly well — a whole $20 million more than predicted. This should definitely assuage fans who were concerned by the low predictions the film received last week and frankly, it definitely makes one wonder at those low predictions. Logan has the combination of being a superhero film starring a big name, making it a guaranteed success more or less. Why it received predictions on the lower end is for anyone to argue, but some reasons lobbied about, here included, were its R-rating and quieter marketing campaign. Still, this film and its impressive performance only furthers the idea that superhero films are nearly indestructible at the box office. Worldwide, the film is already close to $250 million. In terms of the larger X-Men franchise, Logan earned the largest opening for the three films centered around the Wolverine character and became the fourth-highest opening in the universal overall, opening behind only Deadpool, X-Men: The Last Stand, and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

The next two films opened a good $6 – 7 million beyond what they were predicted to earn. Jordan Peele’s socially relevant horror film Get Out earned just over $28 million, dropping only 15 percent, a surprising feat, while the new faith-based film The Shack opened to $16 million. Not even M. Night Shyamalan’s most recent film Split could accomplish what Get Out has — the former horror film dropped 35 percent from its first to its second weekend. Clearly, the near-perfect track record Get Out has received from critics and audiences alike is doing wonders for its box office performance, as word-of-mouth for the film continues to buzz about town. The film should be able to reach $100 million, or at least get very close, in its next weekend and with a budget of only $4.5 million, it’s nothing short of incredible.

Lionsgate

The Shack, meanwhile, proves that while religious films might not be able to bring in decent-sized crowds, but stars certainly can. Star-less Christian films tend to do less well, but films like this, which stars Octavia Spencer, or 2016’s Miracles from Heaven, starring Jennifer Garner and Queen Latifah, have had some of the best openings of faith-based films. Lionsgate’s The Shack won’t crack any box office records but with a budget of $20 million, it should at least be able to make a decent enough profit, even if it’s nothing super substantial.

Bringing up the rear, both in their fourth weekends, are The LEGO Batman Movie and John Wick: Chapter 2, making exactly what they were expected to make. In fact, the only reason LEGO Batman didn’t place third is because of The Shack‘s surprisingly strong performance. John Wick: Chapter 2, in its last week in the top five, has now made double its predecessor domestically and is getting close to doubling its worldwide intake as well. LEGO Batman isn’t doing quite as well in comparison to its predecessor, but it’s still close to $260 million worldwide.

Elsewhere, the new YA film Before I Fall, which has been receiving decent reviews, opened with an expected $4.6 million and the rest of the top 12 films consisted of mainstays like Hidden Figures, Fifty Shades Darker, and La La Land. Best Picture winner Moonlight re-opened in theaters and brought in $2.3 million in a little over 1,500 theaters.

(Source: boxoffice.com, boxofficemojo.com. Figures represent numbers at time of writing, and may have changed.)

Anya Crittenton | Associate Editor