Your Complete Weekend Box Office Tracking, Predictions, & Analysis (10.20.16)

	Jack Reacher: Never Go Back	$18.8 million
	Boo! A Madea Halloween	$16.3 million
	Ouija: Origin of Evil	$14.5 million
	The Accountant	$14 million
	The Girl on the Train	$6.4 million

Movie star Tom Cruise is back at it again with a sequel to his 2012 film Jack Reacher, based on Lee Child’s novel One Shot. After the surprisingly generous opening The Accountant received last weekend, which could likely be attributed to Ben Affleck’s draw, at least somewhat, it’s no small feat to think Cruise will be able to do the same this weekend. The first film had a relatively soft opening, only $15.2 million as a near-Christmas release, but it wound up having good legs, drawing in $218 million worldwide by the end of its run (and likely what greenlit this sequel at all). It’s been some time since that film was released and Jack Reacher isn’t a phenomenon of a franchise, but Cruise is a marketable figure and the studio has been pushing the movie hard for the past several weeks. Plus, the less-than-kind reviews from critics shouldn’t sway audiences who are loyal to action films in this genre. It won’t be much of a surprise if this sequel doesn’t quite have the stamina of its predecessor, but it should be able to make a profit on its $60 million budget. Still, given all of Cruise’s films post the first Jack Reacher have made well over $25 million on their opening weekends, this definitely isn’t Cruise’s most profitable outing.

Paramount Pictures

The next two films in this weekend’s top five will appeal to those wanting some of the month’s holiday in their media. First up will be Tyler Perry’s latest addition into his Madea franchise with Boo! A Madea Halloween. None of these films have ever done particularly well with critcs (they’re all rotten on Rotten Tomatoes), but they have a loyal following and a built-in audience, which has allowed them to thrive financially. All the previous Madea outings have been able to make $50 million domestically by the end of their time in theaters and this one should be no different. Plus, with the minimal budget they’re all made on, they’re easy profit-makers as well. The last Madea film was Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas and it opened to $16 million, going on to make $52 million. This Halloween take had one of the higher budgets of these films, $20 million, but it should still easily be able to make a profit. And between Perry’s loyal fanbase and the addition of Belle Thorne in this movie and her rising popularity, there’s definitely an audience here.

	Opening Weekend	Current Gross	Facebook Likes	Tweets
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back	N/A	N/A	556,209	10,975
Boo! A Madea Halloween	N/A	N/A	317,099	8,286
Ouija: Origin of Evil	N/A	N/A	1,780,947	6,275
The Accountant	$24.710 million	$31.891 million	8,892	27,885
The Girl on the Train	$24.536 million	$50.525 million	14,508	16,610

Ouija: Origin of Evil taps into one of the surprise genre hits of the year: horror. From Lights Out to The Conjuring 2 and most recently Don’t Breathe, horror has had a good year, which is why I’ve given Ouija the slight edge over The Accountant. One of the downsides to this film is that it’s a sequel to the 2014 film Ouija, which made a decent $50 million at the box office ($103 million worldwide, which is spectacularly good on a $5 million budget), but got awful reviews from critics, settling on a 7 percent at Rotten Tomatoes. There’s a chance that could keep audiences away — however, this sequel currently has an 80 percent with critics, which will also inspire audiences more to go see it on the faith that it will be better than its predecessor. Its final box office number could sway slightly, but it should definitely be able to hold its own this weekend. The sequel was made for slightly more at $9 million and should be an easy profit machine for Universal. It’s also opening in several hundred more theaters than the original did.

Universal Pictures

Is there a chance Affleck could sweep in with The Accountant to overtake Ouija’s third place position? Absolutely, but they should be neck-and-neck either way. Given the strong word of mouth the film’s received in the midst of its middling reviews, The Accountant shouldn’t suffer from too big a drop between weekends. It’s had a relatively good day-to-day box office during the week as well, which poses well for audiences coming back to the theater to see it over the next three days. The film is already at $35 million worldwide on a $44 million budget so Warner Bros. and everyone involved should be feeling pretty good about themselves right now.

	Rotten Tomatoes			IMDb		Metacritic
	Critics	Users	# of Ratings	Stars	# of Ratings
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back	38	N/A	80	6.8	979	57
Boo! A Madea Halloween	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Ouija: Origin of Evil	80	N/A	45	7.0	160	65
The Accounant	50	86	21,069	7.8	8,389	51
The Girl on the Train	44	56	21,150	6.7	16,230	48

Finally, the other thriller in theaters right now, Emily Blunt’s The Girl on the Train is beginning to quietly step out of theaters — 152 this weekend to be precise. It’s nearly at $85 million so even with less than stellar reviews, it’s still been able to prove itself a financial success. And while this will be the last weekend it’s in the top five (the only movie opening in wide relase next week is Inferno, but given it has the names Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, and Dan Brown attached to it, it will do good business), it’s still going to keep its total box office rising. It’s already beaten both of Blunt’s past two films, The Huntsman: Winter’s War and Sicario, so it’s further proof of her power at the very least.

Finishing out the top ten will be Keeping Up with the Joneses, which is opening tomorrow in a little over 3,000 theaters and the fact that it probably won’t break the top five is not a great thing. Elsewhere, Kevin Hart: What Now?, Deepwater Horizon, Miss Peregrine, and Storks, will round out the top ten as they slowly continue to take in some decent numbers.

(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