Your Complete Weekend Box Office Tracking, Predictions, & Analysis (11.03.16)

	Doctor Strange	$86 million
	Trolls	$40 million
	Hacksaw Ridge	$11 million
	Boo! A Madea Halloween	$7.4 million
	Inferno	$7.2 million

Disney and Marvel are returning to theaters this weekend to get us out of the current box office slump we’re in, as they’ve each been doing all year long (Captain America: Civil War, Zootopia, The Jungle Book, Finding Dory). And despite the surprises the box office has contained in the past few weeks, there shouldn’t be any major ones this weekend, at least in terms of what takes the crown, which will undoubtedly be the latest entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Doctor Strange. (If something goes awry with this, I may stop predicting box office altogether because the end will clearly be nigh.)

This time last year, another franchise installment opened on the same weekend: the James Bond film Spectre. Doctor Strange should easily be able to overtake that film’s $70 million opening and with any luck, will be one of the largest openings for a single Marvel character’s introductory film, second only to 2008’s Iron Man, which made an astonishing $98.6 million opening weekend. The mystical film, entering a brand new realm — literally — for Marvel with popular actor Benedict Cumberbatch at the helm as hero Stephen Strange, is so far receiving rave reviews from critics. It’s seen its share of criticism, mainly for the casting of white actor Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One and the general mix of diversity in the film, but that won’t keep large droves of audiences from coming out this weekend to see the film. Those who have seen most, if not all of Marvel’s films, are fully invested at this point and the character of Doctor Strange promises to have a large and impacting future in the universe.

Marvel Studios

Disney — comprised of its own animation and live-action division, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel, primarily — has already eclipsed its own record at the global box office with $5.85 billion so far. Between Strange and the studio’s next two big films, the animated film Moana and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, it could very well best Universal’s all-time global box office record that was set last year. As for the MCU at large, it’s currently at just over $4 billion with its thirteen titles, and will only continue to grow with Strange and all the planned movies for the future, making it one of the most successful franchises of all time.

	Opening Weekend	Current Gross	Facebook Likes	Tweets
Doctor Strange	N/A	N/A	419,965	179,609
Trolls	N/A	N/A	228,162	6,753
Hacksaw Ridge	N/A	N/A	112,201	9,089
Boo! A Madea Halloween	$28.501 million	$56.491 million	13,856	13,273
Inferno	$14.860 million	$18.902 million	N/A	12,310

While Doctor Strange should easily coast to the number one spot this weekend, it won’t be the only film helping out the current box office slump. DreamWorks’ new animated film Trolls is slated to open anywhere between $35 and $50 million, but whichever end of the scale it ends up falling at, it’s a more than decent amount. Trolls is enough of a counter-programming title to Doctor Strange, especially for much younger children, that it should start out on good footing to make a profit on its $125 million budget. Plus, there’s little-to-none competition for the film right now in terms of family or animated fare. The last wide-release animated film to come out was Warner Bros.’ Storks and that was at the end of September.

DreamWorks Animation

Also helping Trolls out is its popular cast — led by Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake — and its strong marketing campaign, which arrive in full force this week. Even more than that, Timberlake’s single for the film, “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” has been an earworm for months now and while its popularity won’t singularly lead audiences to the film, it’s already put the film in good graces.

Summit Entertainment

The final new wide release of the weekend is Mel Gibson’s new film, Hacksaw Ridge, which recently garnered several nominations from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts. Led by Andrew Garfield, the film is a World War II film about a soldier who earned Congressional Medal of Honor despite refusing to bear arms for religious and pacifist reasons. Gibson has largely found his way back into the good graces of Hollywood and the film has been earning positive buzz for some time now. It’s opening in 2,880 theaters, which is far less than Trolls’ 4,060 and Strange’s 3,882, but enough to hurtle this film into third place, even if it’s a distant third place. Some audiences will have their reasons not to see this film, but for others, it’s a home run, especially as an inspiring period piece. It’s also helpful the critics are so far strongly on the film’s side as it has a 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which is even with Doctor Strange.

	Rotten Tomatoes			IMDb		Metacritic
	Critics	Users	# of Ratings	Stars	# of Ratings
Doctor Strange	90	N/A	168	8.0	37,670	74
Trolls	75	N/A	76	6.6	2,063	48
Hacksaw Ridge	90	N/A	90	8.7	2,202	66
Boo! A Madea Halloween	22	63	7,020	4.7	1,648	30
Inferno	20	43	22,345	6.4	26,550	44

Bringing up the rear of the pack will be Boo! A Madea Halloween and Inferno. While the latter was thoroughly embarrassed by the former last weekend, there’s a chance it could reclaim a sliver of dignity this weekend and come in fourth place, but I’m going to give the edge to Tyler Perry and his latest Madea film because of how well it’s been doing lately. It’s true that Inferno has had better day-to-day results than Boo! this week and it will also be in a little more than a thousand theaters over Boo!, but word of mouth goes a long way and Inferno has not benefited at all from it since its premiere last weekend. We all love Tom Hanks, but I don’t think we’re going to be seeing Inferno this weekend merely in moral support of him.

Focus Features, Universal Pictures

Rounding out the top ten will be mainstays The Accountant, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Miss Peregrine, and The Girl on the Train. A final film to point out is Jeff Nichols’ awards contender, Loving, which also opens this weekend and stars Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton as the real-life couple who prompted the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia. It’s only opening in four locations in New York and Los Angeles, but will have a wider and wider release in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. With the buzz around this film, and the fantastic reviews for it out of TIFF, it’s definitely a film to keep an eye on.

(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