Your Complete Weekend Box Office Tracking, Predictions, & Analysis (09.08.16)
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Sully |
$26 million |
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When the Bough Breaks |
$17.5 million |
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Don’t Breathe |
$8 million |
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Suicide Squad |
$5 million |
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The Wild Life |
$4.5 million |
This weekend will see a new film claim the number one spot at the domestic box office. In fact, this weekend’s box office will have a lot of new blood, which is refreshing. New films open every week, but the box office has felt particularly stagnant as of late so to see three new titles in the top five is a good sight, regardless of content. However, the content of the number one film is largely being praised so far — the Clint Eastwood film, which has been making its rounds to the film festivals and is being set up as a potential Oscar contender, so far boasts an 81 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The film has a lot of things going for it to appeal to various types of audiences: Clint Eastwood (a divisive figure, but he has his share of fans), Tom Hanks (the opposite of a divisive figure), a heroic and compelling true story, and it has awards buzz. It’s tracking to make between $25 and $28 million on a $60 million budget, and opening in a huge amount of theaters — 3,525, to be exact. The Denzel Washington film Flight, which has a similar enough premise, opened to $24 million, and the last big Tom Hanks awards film where he played a real-life figure, Captain Phillips, opened to $25 million, so this film is on course to do about the same. Plus, those two films opened in fewer theaters. Whatever this film ends up making, it definitely won’t have a crash landing.
When the Bough Breaks, another new film, will open to second place this weekend. It’s currently tracking in the low-mid teens, but there’s a strong chance it will open a little higher. It appeals to a specific and loyal audience and also targets the same type of demographic that has kept the horror film Don’t Breathe in first place until now (although given both films hail from Screen Gems, it’s not so terrible). The thriller film, which features Morris Chestnut and Regina Hall as a married couple who hires a surrogate to carry their child before things get dangerous, should have a relatively good weekend. Similar films like Obsessed and The Perfect Guy (which also starred Chestnut) made $28 million and $25 million, respectively, which is why I’m giving Bough the benefit of the doubt and predicting it to open a little higher than its tracking numbers suggest.
The next two films will be ones that have been sticking around the top five for some time now, Don’t Breathe and Suicide Squad. As stated, Don’t Breathe will likely lose some of its audience to Bough, but for plainer reasons, it’ll be in its third week come the weekend, and it’s naturally bound to fall. Still, it’s so far made nearly six times its $9.9 million budget and that is a huge win for Sony Pictures and Screen Gems. With the drop, it will lose about 50 percent of its audience, even as it expands to 333 more theaters, but there’s no way this film can be seen as anything other than a financial success. Suicide Squad, meanwhile, will continue to make less and less money slowly each weekend (even as it’s still playing in over 3,000 theaters) until it finally loses its place in the top five and fades away, which sounds dramatic, but isn’t really given most films go through a similar process, and Suicide Squad’s total box office is nothing to scoff at. Still, it’s definitely not going out with a bang.
Opening Weekend | Current Gross | Facebook Likes | Tweets | |
Sully | N/A | N/A | 105,261 | 17,209 |
When the Bough Breaks | N/A | N/A | 181,985 | 5,749 |
Don’t Breathe | $26.411 million | $57.694 million | 24,623 | 102,025 |
Suicide Squad | $133.682 million | $301.312 million | 93,873 | 141,179 |
The Wild Life | N/A | N/A | 7,236 | 3,562 |
Finally, fifth place should go to another new film opening this weekend: Lionsgate and Summit’s animated film The Wild Life about Robinson Crusoe. But just because it makes it into the top five, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a success. While some animated films this year have been dominating, there have also been some pretty notable animated flops (Ratchet and Clank, Norm of the North, and Ice Age: Collision Course) and this one seems to be going in the same direction. It’s made about $20 million internationally so far and those numbers on top of tracking predictions don’t bode well for the film. But at least it will keep an animated film in the top five (although if it ends up not making enough, Kubo and the Two Strings would likely be the film to replace it).
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Rotten Tomatoes | IMDb | Metacritic | ||||
Critics | Users | # of Ratings | Stars | # of Ratings | ||
Sully | 81 | N/A | 83 | 8.0 | 958 | 74 |
When the Bough Breaks | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Don’t Breathe | 87 | 83 | 20,366 | 7.7 | 15,584 | 71 |
Suicide Squad | 26 | 67 | 119,094 | 6.7 | 202,259 | 40 |
The Wild Life | 23 | N/A | 22 | 5.3 | 1,506 | 33 |
Speaking of Kubo, it’s on its way to guarantee a sixth place finish of about $4 million. It will be followed by films like Pete’s Dragon, Bad Moms, Hell or High Water (word of mouth is really working wonders for this film), and Sausage Party or The Light Between Oceans rounding out the top ten. What likely won’t make an appearance at all in the top ten is another new film: horror film The Disappointments Room starring Kate Beckinsale. It’s opening in 1,554 theaters and looking to pull in about $2 million.
(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