Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
February 20, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
We’ll start with Deadpool again because that’s much more interesting than anything else released this weekend. After a record-breaking opening last weekend, Deadpool predictably falls back to earth a bit with a 66% decline to $16.2 million on Friday, which is still way ahead of everything else in theaters right now, even this weekend’s new releases. So far it’s got $196.6 million and after today will be the first 2016 release to cross the $200 million mark. All that on a budget for $58 million. Expect references to this in the sequel.
The combination of the President’s Day weekend/Valentine’s Day helped even a fanboy movie like Deadpool have a great weekend (it earned just as much Sunday as it did on Saturday, and were only off 10% from Friday even with Thursday’s total included), and so it’s no surprise there’s a big decline following an inflated opening. The rest of the weekend should be more typical, with an increase today and a drop on Sunday. That would send Deadpool to a still great second weekend of $50.2 million.
Risen
The biblical-based epic managed $4 million on Friday, the best performance among the weekend’s new releases. I’m not entirely sure what the target audience for Risen is outside of those who tend to head towards faith-based features. That might give it a slight boost on Sunday and should send it to an okay weekend of about $12 million.
The Witch
By far the best reviewed new release of the weekend, The Witch earned $3.2 million on Friday. While cited as legitimately scary and innovative, it got a CinemaScore of C- from audiences, which means The Witch now is much more likely find a huge following on Netflix than in theaters. Even with the rave reviews, it’s in line for only $8 million this weekend.
Race
The Jesse Owens biopic doesn’t even earn the bronze medal as it’s in sixth place on Friday with just $2.3 million. However, it’ll win the race in terms of how quickly it’s going to be out of theaters after a weekend of just $6.9 million.