“Wonder Woman” to Finish “The Mummy” on the Box Office Battleground

	Wonder Woman	$51 million
	The Mummy	$30 million
	Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie	$12.7 million
	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales	$9.3 million
	It Comes At Night	$8 million

Wonder Woman won’t be giving up its number one spot at the box office that easily, not with the continued positive buzz around it (it’s now the most-Tweeted about film of the year) and impressive ticket sales. While most action blockbusters tend to drop between 55 and 60 percent in their second weekends, especially during the crowded summer season, Wonder Woman will likely fall more around the 50 percent mark, give or take. Of course, this also has to do with the weak competition the weekend boasts, but that doesn’t mean Wonder Woman‘s own merits should be downplayed at all. It had a very good Tuesday, especially, racking up $14.3 million, one of the best midweek performances, and as we all know, weekends do even better.

Wonder Woman is now at $138.6 million before its second weekend ($15 million more than Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, going into its third weekend) and $263.6 million worldwide. While it may not become the first film in the DC Extended Universe to reach $1 billion worldwide, it is looking to become one of the best-performing films of the franchise Stateside, where it has much of its momentum. Man of Steel leads it $291 million and there’s a very good chance, should the film not lose its footing in the coming weeks (and it looks like it won’t), that Wonder Woman will be able to surpass it, perhaps even Suicide Squad at $325 million too. Between the record it broke last weekend and the numerous think pieces praising the film for its action, its feminism, its love story, and beyond, Wonder Woman shows no signs of slowing down.

Universal Pictures

Meanwhile, its biggest competition, Universal’s The Mummy starring Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, and Russell Crowe, which is meant to kickstart the studio’s shared monster universe, dubbed the Dark Universe, could very well come to a screeching halt upon its premiere. Once projected for a $40 million opening, it’s since dropped to $30-35 million, but with poor reviews hitting this week (the film boasts only a 20 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), it’s likely to premiere at the lower end of things.

Not everyone is sold on the Dark Universe, which was meant to begin with 2014’s Dracula Untold but after it bombed with a gross of only $56 million, was left behind as the studio moved forward without it. Some audiences are skeptical over the studio reviving these classic movies and monsters (which now includes the Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Invisible Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, as well as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera) and those concerns certainly haven’t been allayed by reviews for The Mummy. Should it open on the lower end of $30 million, it will be one of the more middling premieres for Cruise but more importantly, for a new franchise he could potentially lead alongside Mission: Impossible. Whether or not The Mummy performs well remains to be seen — what will be truly interesting to watch, especially with its $125 million budget, is what Universal will do if it flops (at least domestically, as it’s projected to do well overseas).

	Opening Weekend	Current Gross	Facebook Likes	Tweets
Wonder Woman	$103.2m	$138.6m	167,373	1,701,891
The Mummy	N/A	N/A	4,065,856	80,018
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie	$23.8m	$30.3m	N/A	28,857
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales	$62.9m	$123.1m	6,742	56,872
It Comes At Night	N/A	N/A	179,219	5,972

Landing squarely in the middle will be holdovers Captain Underpants and Pirates of the Caribbean, the former falling a little under 50 percent (or around there) as most family animated families tend to do, while the latter will continue its decline with a fall closer to 60 percent. Just over $30 million now, Captain Underpants is looking to be one of the weaker DreamWorks Animation films. Despite its good reviews and strong IP, it’s the 34th highest film of the bunch… out of 35. It’s currently lagging $20 million behind the 33rd highest DreamWorks film, 2000’s The Road to El Dorado (which has become something of a cult hit, especially among millennials). With its $38 million budget, it’s not doing terribly, but it certainly has more ground to make up before it can confidently make a profit.

Pirates is now over $500 million worldwide, but continues to track as the weakest film of the franchise. It’s over $100 million behind Curse of the Black Pearl both globally and domestically (Dead Men Tell No Tales is currently at $123 million here) and is coming to its end, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Could this spell the end of the franchise, despite any future plans the studio may have for it.

	Rotten Tomatoes		IMDb	Metacritic
	Critics	Users	Stars
Wonder Woman	93	92	8.2	76
The Mummy	20	N/A	6.6	39
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie	84	70	7.0	69
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales	29	69	7.1	39
It Comes At Night	88	N/A	7.6	79

The last spot in the top five could be a toss-up if Guardians 2 manages to hang out but given the way blockbusters drop more and more dramatically with each subsequent week, and the proven success of horror films, our bet is on the new A24 film It Comes At Night, starring Joel Edgerton. The film is earning mostly rave reviews from critics and as recent films have proven, horror usually has a good shot of being a success. Just look at the numbers of recent films like Get Out ($175 million), Split ($138 million), and Don’t Breathe ($89 million), all of which pulled in decent numbers abroad as well on relatively low budgets. It Comes At Night likely also has a small budget and could whet people’s appetites for a good horror film. While it’s projecting to make $6-7 million, there’s a good chance it could do even a little better than that.

Megan Leavey, the military dog drama starring Kate Mara is the only other wide release of the weekend, but it’s only expected to make between $2 and $3 million, if that.

(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