Stellar Reviews Will Make People “Get Out” to the Movies This Weekend, as the Horror Film Looks to Win the Box Office

	Get Out	$25 million
	The LEGO Batman Movie	$18.7 million
	Fifty Shades Darker	$11 million
	John Wick: Chapter 2	$9 million
	The Great Wall	$8.8 million

Based on a rare 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes (aggregating 93 reviews so far), the appeal of horror films, and excellent buzz, newcomer Get Out is looking to top the box office this weekend and de-throne the Dark Knight. From the mind of one-half of Key & Peele — the Peele half, Jordan Peele is the director and writer of the new film — Get Out focuses on a young black man who accompanies his white girlfriend to her home, which just so happens to be an affluent, white neighborhood, not unlike The Stepford Wives. Things get scary and tense once they arrive, as well as incredibly socially relevant, and that’s what should propel this film past Universal’s prediction of an opening weekend haul in the high teens. Its similar brethren, Split, opened with an astonishing $40 million and while Get Out likely won’t reach those heights, it should still soar past the modest expectations. After all, horror tends to do well and this is the film to talk about right now (other than Oscar films, of course), so audiences won’t want to miss it.

Universal Pictures

Still, The LEGO Batman Movie is definitely going to put up a fight — can you expect anything less from Batman? Officially over $100 million domestically, the animated film is looking to increase its total intake and surpass $200 million worldwide (it currently sits at $184 million, which is where The LEGO Movie was in its third weekend — domestically, that is). It still faces no competition in the way of other family-friendly films and won’t again until March 17 when Disney’s highly anticipated live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast opens, but it’s still on course for a gradual decline, as is the case for any film as it remains open for longer and longer. Over the next weekend or so, at the very least, LEGO Batman will begin to see a good profit.

	Opening Weekend	Current Gross	Facebook Likes	Tweets
Get Out	N/A	N/A	153,945	13,105
The LEGO Batman Movie	$53m	$112.2m	18,977	60,117
Fifty Shades Darker	$46.6m	$94.6m	51,800	180,813
John Wick: Chapter 2	$30.4m	$64.2m	31,985	96,811
The Great Wall	$18.4m	$24.6m	8,649	37,807

While some predict The Great Wall to keep doing relatively okay. Okay enough to not drop to the bottom of the box office, but it’s also likely the film has already gotten the most of the audience it’s ever going to get. Which means that Fifty Shades Darker and John Wick: Chapter 2, both going into their third weekends, will surpass it as they pull in between $8 and $10 million over the weekend. The former, nearly to $300 million worldwide, will likely cross $100 million come Monday, an amount its predecessor surpassed with ease by its second weekend. With how slower Fifty Shades Darker is pacing than the first film, Universal has to know that the third and final film, which is set for release next year, will likely open with even less (unless, of course, people are more interested in the finale).

John Wick: Chapter 2 is declining in theaters, the same as Fifty Shades Darker and The LEGO Batman Movie, and while it won’t hugely impact the film’s weekend intake, it certainly never helps. With a decent enough haul, the John Wick sequel will cross the $100 million threshold worldwide and that’s more than its predecessor was ever able to make. Clearly, the secret magic of Keanu Reeves and this very unexpected action film has achieved goals no one saw coming and that alone is an accomplishment.

	Rotten Tomatoes		IMDb	Metacritic
	Critics	Users	Stars
Get Out	100	N/A	6.5	82
The LEGO Batman Movie	91	85	7.7	75
Fifty Shades Darker	8	57	4.9	33
John Wick: Chapter 2	90	91	8.3	75
The Great Wall	35	55	6.3	42

Finally, The Great Wall should still be able to stay in the top five. While there’s a chance it performs better than expected this weekend, as it did in its premiere, the film is so passé now and the tacky visuals of Matt Damon acting as a white savior in China has lost its appeal. There are bigger and better things to check out.

The same goes for the other two films opening in wide release this weekend — Collide, starring Nicholas Hoult and Felicity Jones, and the animated film Rock Dog. No one’s heard of these films and honestly, no one can really be blamed for that. The former was supposed to come out in October 2015 but had to be pushed back and shuffled around when Relativity declared bankruptcy. This never bodes well for a film and now this one, which has a solid cast and entertaining enough premise, is going to suffer as it looks to only make between $3 and $4 million in its opening.

(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