Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
November 12, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The critically acclaimed Arrival starts off with $9.3 million on Friday. That actually makes it the third place film on Friday, but it’s a decent enough start for something lacking in the action department. It’s currently a long shot Oscar contender (when you include films that haven’t been released yet), but a strong box office performance can only help its chances. As something for the older audiences out there, it’s in line for a decent weekend, despite the presence of Doctor Strange and Trolls. Pure sci-fi drama is a hard sell, but if it can avoid getting lost in the next couple weeks (and buried by the existing holdovers and next weekend’s Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them), it could hit $100 million and keeps in in the awards conversation. This weekend, Arrival comes in with a weekend of $29.7 million.
Almost Christmas
The first holiday film to make it to theaters takes in $5.9 million on Friday. Almost Christmas benefits from not only being out first but also a having a predominantly African-American cast. It’s a good enough start to continue the trend set by the opening weekends for this year’s A Madea Halloween and Barbershop: The Next Cut. There’s even a chance for holiday-themed films released early on to hang in there as we approach the actual holidays. For the weekend, look for Almost Christmas to earn a solid $16.5 million.
Shut In
Not screened for critics, Shut In scared up $1.4 million on Friday. Nothing else to see here with much more interesting things to talk about at the box office, so go with a weekend of $3.5 million.
Doctor Strange
A second Friday of $14.9 million is good enough for Doctor Strange to win Friday, despite a decline of 54.2% from last Friday. Marvel movies have certainly fallen a lot further on their second Fridays. Deadpool, for instance, fell 65.7%. Normally the Bumbershoot Crumblypants Benedict Cumberbatch movie would then cruise to a second weekend at the top, but something pretty crazy happened that is going to make it very close. Doctor Strange is headed for a second weekend of $44.7 million.
Trolls
That crazy thing I mentioned? Trolls earned $12.2 million on Friday, which is just a 1.2% decline from last Friday. Friday happened to be Veteran’s Day and schools were closed, so the benefit to Trolls was obvious. If it matches the multiplier it had last weekend, Trolls wins the weekend with about $46 million. However, when the Friday is inflated that generally hurts the rest of the weekend, so Doctor Strange is likely to take the weekend, though, well, stranger things have happened. Trolls is headed to a second weekend of $36.6 million.