Weekend Wrap-Up
By Tim Briody
November 26, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Since the runaway success of Frozen in 2013, we’ve now seen a Thanksgiving release each of the last three years by Disney, two coming from Pixar. 2015’s The Good Dinosaur was a rare miss, topping out at $123 million, but Moana crushed it, not quite to Frozen levels, but $248.7 million was a solid run. Now Pixar is back with Coco, a Day of the Dead themed film that released in Mexico a month ahead of the domestic release and already became the highest grossing film of all time there. With outstanding reviews (since it’s not a Cars sequel), it was a no-brainer to lead the box office through the holiday weekend.
Coco is indeed the top film for the weekend with $49 million from Friday to Sunday and $71.1 million over the five-day holiday period. That’s a fine total, even if it’s less than the $82 million Moana took in over the same period last year. Coco, with its lack of The Rock and Lin-Manuel Miranda penned tunes, is slightly tougher sell than than Moana, but it’s still a strong start. Yes, it’s on the lower end of the Pixar spectrum when it comes to opening weekends, but it did earn $22 million in its first two holiday powered days. It’ll be fine.
The important question now with Disney’s Thanksgiving releases is whether they can hold for a few weeks to make it to late December. Frozen is the poster child for this, of course; after the traditional post-Thanksgiving drop, Frozen held on well enough to stay relevant over the holiday box office boost, which culminated with it being the #1 movie over New Year’s weekend as it turned its $93 million start into $400 million. While Coco won’t be a smash to that extent (because of a little indie film called Star Wars), if word-of-mouth can continue to spread (it got an A+ CinemaScore), there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be looking at a total similar to Moana’s $248.7 million.
Down to second is Justice League, and DC has a big problem. The superhero mashup earned $40.7 million over the weekend (and $59.5 million in five days), which is a decline of 57% from last weekend. That’s a total of $171.4 million in two weekends. Here’s the problem. Black Friday is not only a big day for retail outlets, it’s also a big day at the movie theater. While a Friday-to-Friday drop for Justice League was to be expected, the 57% Friday-to-Friday decline was absolutely crushing. Six of the top ten films that were in theaters last weekend saw a Friday-to-Friday increase. The only declines were A Bad Moms Christmas (down 21%, blame that on being four weeks old and dropping some screens), Wonder (down 9%, more on that in a few) and the 57% decline for Justice League. There’s no sugarcoating that one, that’s bad. Per our friends at ERC, last year’s Thanksgiving holdover Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them dropped 39%. If Justice League had pulled that off, it would have won the weekend and we’d be talking a different story.
With next weekend being a traditionally awful weekend at the box office, expect another 50% decline at minimum. That’ll get it to $200 million when you throw in midweek earnings. But $300 million is out of the window and at this rate, Justice League will be a distant memory by the time we get to the point when the big December box office kicks in. Also, if it had any inkling of being a competitor to Star Wars? That’s long gone.
In third we have the surprise hit Wonder, down just 19% from last weekend to $22.3 million and $32.2 million in the Wednesday-to-Sunday period, an amount that nobody would have blinked at if you had predicted as its final gross. Wonder has earned $69.3 million after just two weekends and is a lock for $100 million at this point. This is a big winner for Lionsgate, especially with just a $20 million budget, considering the names involved.
Thor: Ragnarok drops to fourth with $16.7 million and $24.2 million in five days, a weekend drop of just 23%, impressive after the larger declines in the first two weekends. Thor has $277.4 million in the bank and will inch closer to the $300 million mark next weekend, but it probably needs one more to get there. Another big win for Marvel, who are pointing and laughing at DC right about now.
Daddy’s Home 2 adds another $13.2 million, off just 9% from last weekend, giving it $72.6 million in the bank after three weekends. Being the top comedic option (depending on your view of Thor) for the weekend is the best explanation for the solid hold. I don’t know if there’s enough left in the tank to get it to $100 million, but $90-95 million is looking pretty likely. Remember that the first one opened over Christmas Day and rode that train to $150 million. Daddy’s Home had $116.3 million at this point, as we had just finished the first post New Year’s weekend.
Murder on the Orient Express continues to run neck and neck with Daddy’s Home 2, as it takes sixth place with $13 million (and $18.5 million in five days) and brings its total to $74.2 million. It's down just a scant 6% from last weekend, the lowest decline in the top ten (of the films not expanding). Kenneth Branagh may have a budding franchise on his hands here as both star and director, as it was announced this week that an adaptation of Death on the Nile, another Poirot novel by Agatha Christie, is in the works, with Branagh exceedingly likely to return in both roles.
With main competition from Coco, The Star drops 31% from last weekend to $6.8 million. The second tier animated film now has $21.9 million after two weekends, so it managed its budget back. Next weekend will be less kind as everything takes a post-Thanksgiving hit, and you can expect The Star to end up with about $40 million by the time it’s done.
A Bad Moms Christmas barely makes it to Thanksgiving with another $5 million the weekend and $59.7 million after four weekends in theaters. The 28% drop from last weekend is high considering it’s generally favorable to holdovers, but it did drop some screens and is one of the older films in the top ten at this point. The disappointing sequel is going to top out with about $75 million, well off the $113 million earned by last year’s first film.
Things get interesting again in ninth as an expansion by Roman J. Israel, Esq. A legal drama starring Denzel Washington, written and directed by Dan Gilroy (2014’s Nightcrawler), the film went with the platform release, ostensibly to get Washington some awards attention. The film itself got middling reviews but many praise Washington’s performance, and he’s in the mix for a nomination even though everyone else is competing for second place at this point (Gary Oldman’s got Best Actor on lock, if you haven’t been paying attention). After a mediocre NY/LA release last weekend, Roman J. Israel, Esq. expanded to 1,648 theaters and earned $4.5 million, and $6.2 million in five days. That’s fine, but it doesn’t make the prospects of further expansion very likely.
Tenth goes to another expansion, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Going to 614 theaters, the black dramedy earns $4.4 million and gives it $7.6 million to date. Fox Searchlight will continue to expand it over the next few weeks as it will certainly make many end of year top ten lists.
Outside the top ten, Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird expands to 791 theaters and earns $4 million on the weekend but gets bumped out of the top ten. New release from Bleecker Street, The Man Who Invented Christmas, earned $1.3 million in 626 theaters and likely Best Picture contender Call Me By Your Name earns $400,400 in its four theater NY/LA release, which makes it one to watch as it will expand over the month of December.
The most miserable weekend of box office of the year is next week, as we’ve got no new releases and everything takes a post holiday dive, as it’s the quiet before the storm and we get Star Wars in a few more weeks.