Newcomers to Make Little Impact at the Box Office as “Beauty and the Beast” Nears $1 Billion
0
The Boss Baby |
$28 million |
|
Beauty and the Beast |
$25.6 million |
|
Smurfs: The Lost Village |
$15 million |
|
Ghost in the Shell |
$8.5 million |
|
Going in Style |
$7.8 million |
The Boss Baby and Beauty and the Beast are not letting any new movies take their top spots at the box office this weekend. Despite the direct competition of Smurfs: The Lost Village, more people are going to opt for the decidedly better films — at least according to critics. So instead, DreamWorks Animation’s Boss Baby will continue its strong performance as it looks to drop a little less than 50 percent, which is usually what’s expected from an animated film, especially one that opened well. If it’s able to make it into the high twenties this weekend, it will get close to $100 million domestically. Globally, the film is near to $130 million. While the film won’t be breaking any records, it will be interesting now to watch not how does overall, but rather within DreamWorks’ history, especially given the derision and mockery the film received before it was released. Currently, it’s the studio’s 31st highest grossing film but by the end of the weekend, it should be able to jump up several notches. Just how high it will be able to go remains to be seen but given past track records, it could very well break into the top twenty.
Beauty and the Beast, meanwhile, continues the same narrative it’s been telling since it opened: box office domination and a race to $1 billion. Now, the film is a little less than $90 million away from the coveted goal and if it doesn’t make it this weekend, it’s only a matter of time. It’s not that surprising, given the popularity of the story and the original animated film. Even more exciting for Disney, this won’t be the studio’s only film to reach $1 billion this year, not with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Star Wars: Episode VIII also on the way.
The first new film to land in the box office’s top five will likely be Smurfs: The Lost Village, the third installment in Sony’s Smurfs franchise and the first film of the bunch to be entirely animated. While these films have a tendency to do well regardless of reviews, things are looking less bright for this one. Whether it’s because of the weak marketing campaign, or the fact that it simply doesn’t look all that great, especially when stacked against its competitors, and audiences aren’t interested in the franchise anymore, the Smurfs won’t be coming out on top. Just as with Beauty‘s unsurprising success, the expected mediocre performance of this film is also not something that’s coming out of left field. While the first Smurfs movie opened to $35.6 million, the second plummeted to a $17.5 million opening. By that stretch, the fact that this film is still opening in the ballpark of its predecessor is an accomplishment in and of itself.
Opening Weekend | Current Gross | Facebook Likes | Tweets | |
The Boss Baby | $50.1m | $60.3m | 92,284 | 97,322 |
Beauty and the Beast | $174.7m | $404.1m | 33,179 | 231,761 |
Smurfs: The Lost Village | N/A | N/A | 13,858,212 | 46,541 |
Ghost in the Shell | $18.6m | $23m | 27,263 | 210,383 |
Going in Style | N/A | N/A | 55,296 | 7,064 |
The lackluster and controversial Ghost in the Shell is dwindling fast at the box office and its inevitable fall will come even quicker after this weekend. While a drop over 50 percent is typical for blockbuster action flicks, it’s the fact that the film opened low to begin with which boasts the problem. After all, drops happen to every film but the higher a film opens, the more time it takes for a film to hit the bottom. Not so with Ghost in the Shell. It already opened closer to the bottom than it wanted to and now it’s on its way to get there much faster. On a $110 million budget, it’s only made $23 million domestically and $73.6 million globally, which is shaping up for a loss on the film, rather than any sort of profit, however small.
Rounding out the top five will be another film — Going in Style, led by iconic actors Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Alan Arkin. The film looks charming enough and will certainly appeal to a very specific set of movie-goers, but not much more than that. As charming as they are, the trio, unfortunately, isn’t enough to both combat poor reviews and draw people away from the flashier films currently in theaters. It’s expected to open around $8 million, but on a modest $25 million budget, it still has a chance to make some sort of profit for Warner Bros.
|
|
|
||
Rotten Tomatoes | IMDb | Metacritic | ||
Critics | Users | Stars | ||
The Boss Baby | 50 | 63 | 6.3 | 50 |
Beauty and the Beast | 71 | 85 | 7.8 | 65 |
Smurfs: The Lost Village | 31 | N/A | 6.0 | 40 |
Ghost in the Shell | 46 | 62 | 6.9 | 52 |
Going in Style | 40 | N/A | 6.9 | 53 |
Elsewhere, Power Rangers, which has only just crossed $100 million globally, has secured a May 12 China release date after some concerns that content would prevent a release in the Middle Kingdom. This opening should help spur the film forward and make good on its $100 million budget but just how much is a question for the future. As it is, despite Power Rangers‘ relatively strong opening, it’s been dwindling greatly since its first weekend.
Smaller films like the faith-based The Case for Christ, the Anne Hathaway and monster film Colossal, and the family drama Gifted starring Chris Evans, are also opening in limited release this weekend, but they won’t be making much of a splash, at least not yet.
(Sources: boxoffice.com, boxofficemojo.com, rottentomatoes.com, imdb.com, metacritic.com. Tweets and Likes represent figures for this week only. Figures represent numbers at time of writing, and may have changed. Tracking Board does not report Rotten Tomatoes user ratings for movies that have not yet seen wide release.)
Anya Crittenton | Associate Editor