Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
July 1, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
It’s an easy Friday victory for Despicable Me 3 with $29.2 million, with $4.1 million of that coming from Thursday night shows. That’s down a bit from the $35 million earned by the first day of Despicable Me 2 in 2013, but we can attribute that to the calendar configuration, as July 4th fell on a Thursday and Despicable Me 2 opened the previous day. It’s no Minions either ($46 million Friday in 2015) but we knew there’d be a third Despicable Me before a Minions 2 (and Minions was likely the franchise’s high water mark as well before fatigue set in). The last time we had this calendar configuration for the weekend was actually 2006 (with the only new film being The Devil Wears Prada opening against the second weekend of Superman Returns), so we can pretty much toss that comparison out. If we go all the way back to the first Despicable Me in 2010, it started with a modest $21.3 million before finishing with a $56.3 million weekend. Should Despicable Me 3 follow the same path, that’s $77 million. Being a sort-of holiday-ish weekend, I’m looking for a somewhat stronger than average Saturday and Sunday, which would power Despicable Me 3 to a weekend of $81 million.
Baby Driver
The slick-looking (and ridiculously well reviewed) action-comedy Baby Driver earned $6 million on Friday, to go along with $9 million over Wednesday and Thursday. This is a good start and with rave reviews and word-of-mouth, it might have some legs over the next few weeks. I still hate the Wednesday opening, which masks a true breakout (The Friday take is just ahead of the Wednesday opening total), but in the case of Baby Driver, I get what they were trying to do. It’s looking at about $17 million for the weekend and about $26 million in five days, which is a great start.
The House
The comedy starring Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler was destroyed by critics and met with a shrug by audiences, earning just $3.4 million on Friday. The good premise and cast clearly went to waste here and this is the result. It’ll manage about $10 million on the weekend, but it’s going to disappear quickly from here.
Transformers: The Last Knight
After last weekend’s disappointing opening, things get worse for Trans5mers, as it’s a Friday-to-Friday drop of 64.3% to $4.9 million, placing it behind Baby Driver on Friday. It’s not even over $100 million yet, but it will get there by the end of the weekend, as the international earnings continue to pile up. It’s looking at a weekend of about $16 million.