Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
October 15, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Ben Affleck’s The Accountant is the top film on Friday with $9.1 million. That’s ahead of a lot of expectations, with most forecasts predicting a weekend victory with a total of under $20 million. Credit a fairly weak set of October releases and the fact that Affleck, like him or not, has a degree of drawing power as a star (as we mentioned last weekend when comparing Girl on the Train to Affleck’s Gone Girl). The Accountant should do well over the rest of the weekend as it’s the best option for older audiences looking for something, and it’s headed toward a very solid opening weekend of $25.4 million weekend.
Kevin Hart: What Now?
Pretty much the only comedian today that can still pull this off (unless you’re, say, Louis C.K?), Kevin Hart’s third stand up concert film opens with a decent $4.8 million on Friday. His last stand up film, 2013’s Let Me Explain had a $4.7 million opening day, but it opened over an extended five-day July 4th holiday weekend, where it earned $10.3 million on the weekend proper and $17.3 million in five days, on its way to a $32.2 million total. Hart has broken out as a bigger star since then, establishing the Ride Along franchise and even a $127 million hit this summer with Central Intelligence, but wasn’t able to turn that into a bigger opening for his concert film. A weekend of about $12.7 million is where it’ll wind up for the weekend.
Max Steel
You'd be forgiven for not even knowing this film was released this weekend. A movie adaptation of a Mattel toy license, this is a project that has been in the works on and off since 2009. Clearly, the better choice was "off," as the Open Road Films release earned less than $700,000 on the weekend and won't even be able to parlay its box office into a match for its small $5-10 million budget. Look for $1.8 million for the weekend and we'll never speak of it again.
Notable Holdovers
The Girl on the Train falls hard in its second weekend, down 57.9% from last Friday to $3.9 million. It already disappointed last weekend, attempting to duplicate the success of other October book to movie adaptations such as Gone Girl and The Martian, and things get worse this weekend (with the only consolation being it’ll have made its production budget back by the end of the weekend). Look for a second weekend of $11.7 million.