by: Madelyn Glymour | Contributor
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BIG HERO 6 |
$28 million |
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DUMB AND DUMBER TO |
$27 million |
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INTERSTELLAR |
$23 million |
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BEYOND THE LIGHTS |
$10 million |
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GONE GIRL |
$5 million |
This week we have two new releases: Dumb and Dumber To, the decades-delayed sequel to Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels’ Dumb and Dumber, and Beyond the Lights, a romantic drama starring Nate Parker and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. We also see the return of two high grossers from last week, Big Hero 6 and Interstellar.
When movies debut big, they tend to fall big — at least 50 percent. I doubt Big Hero 6 will drop much more than that; it has no family-friendly competition at the moment, and the comparative lack of buzz before it was released means that there will likely be a healthy influx of viewers this week who want to see what all of the fuss is about. It’s also been continuing to perform very well throughout the week. With a $56 million haul in its first weekend, I imagine this weekend it’ll take in somewhere around $28 million. Interstellar may drop a little more, since the really committed people will likely have seen it last weekend, but it should stay within the low 20s.
The big question mark is Dumb and Dumber To. Projections have put it between $30 and $35 million, but I’m not sure. For one thing, although it’s tracking well overall, women appear to be deeply uninterested, which cuts out a lot of its potential audience. In particular, it cuts out a lot of its peripheral/incidental audience, who are pretty important for a sequel that’s banking on fans of its 20-year-old predecessor to drive audience. Fandango pre-sales are good (it’s outselling Anchorman 2 at the same point in its release cycle), but Fandango pre-sales comparisons aren’t terribly reliable indicators of performance; after all, last week, Interstellar was outselling Gravity. People who buy tickets ahead of time tend to be committed viewers, and we already know that Dumb and Dumber To has a healthy core of those. The problem is drawing in others audiences. I don’t think Dumb and Dumber To is going to flop, but I don’t think it’ll do quite as well as current projections have it. I’m thinking something closer to $27 million.
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| Opening Weekend | Current Gross | Facebook Likes | Tweets | |
| BIG HERO 6 | $56.216 million | $71.883 million | 462,429 | 249,835 |
| DUMB AND DUMBER TO | N/A | N/A | 4,143,562 | 25,082 |
| INTERSTELLAR | $47.51 million | $61.837 million | 662,737 | 409,209 |
| BEYOND THE LIGHTS | N/A | N/A | 302,544 | 81,285 |
| GONE GIRL | $37.513 million | $147.138 million | 332,183 | 17,580 |
That leaves the #4 and #5 spots still open. Beyond the Lights has a niche audience, but a committed one (one look at its Twitter numbers should tell you that). $10 million or even a little higher seems perfectly reasonable. Meanwhile, Gone Girl is going into its seventh week. But it was the highest grossing of the last week’s non-new releases, and it’s hard to see it being outdone by Ouija or even Fury.
There’s obviously some wiggle room in this week’s predictions. If Big Hero 6 drops more than anticipated, it could come in second even if Dumb and Dumber To underperforms. And of course, Dumb and Dumber may not underperform. Or Interstellar could see a slightly larger drop than I’ve given it. Still, I like these numbers, and I think we should get used to seeing Big Hero 6 in the top five — for a little while, anyway.
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| Rotten Tomatoes | IMDb | Metacritic | ||||
| Critics | Users | # of Ratings | Stars | # of Ratings | ||
| BIG HERO 6 | 88 | 94 | 38,686 | 8.5 | 9,796 | 75 |
| DUMB AND DUMBER TO | 42 | N/A | 30,892 | 7.9 | 1,340 | 44 |
| INTERSTELLAR | 73 | 88 | 90,202 | 9 | 159,767 | 74 |
| BEYOND THE LIGHTS | 79 | N/A | 6,490 | 5.5 | 317 | 71 |
| GONE GIRL | 88 | 90 | 74,600 | 8.5 | 114,016 | 79 |
(Sources: boxoffice.com, rottentomatoes.com, imdb.com, metacritic.com. Starred figures are estimates. Tweets 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.)
