Weekend Forecast for July 29-31, 2016
By Reagen Sulewski
July 29, 2016
After a dearth of R-rated comedies in recent years, we are suddenly finding ourselves inundated with them, as the two-year reaction time of Hollywood rears its head. Bad Moms stars Mila Kunis as a mom at the end of her rope as far as responsibilities and the pressures of being perfect go, and revolts from the Stepford image, bringing along fellow moms Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn with her against the forces of Christina Appelgate's PTA-fuhrer. Cue the boozing and partying and making out with other ladies in a 30-something idea of letting loose. It's misbehavior within acceptable norms – go mildly crazy, folks!
The conceit is actually a pretty good one, and its ads highlight several quality gags, tapping into a well of rebellion, or at least wanna be rebellion among women. It's an idea that's been tried a couple times before with limited success – Bad Teacher and The Sweetest Thing come to mind, but failed for trying to too broad. Bad Moms boldly appeals primarily to women and doesn't really care much if men come along for the ride. That's a tone that audiences can sense, and they often respect it. This should be a successful strategy for the film, giving it about $27 million this weekend.
Expanding from limited release on Wednesday was Nerve, a twisty high-concept film about a social media app that dares people to perform risky and/or embarrassing stunts for cash. When a high school senior (Emma Roberts) is roped into a round of the app, it connects her with another player (Dave Franco) and sends them on a hellfire ride through New York City with ever escalating stakes. Meanwhile, the omniscient and possibly omnipotent overseers manipulate Roberts' life such that she's forced into continuing way past her point of comfort.
Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, the pair behind the documentary Catfish, it plays like nothing so much as a millennial version of The Game, though one can only hope they match David Fincher's stark and urgent direction. Nerve has been a buzz film for some time, and opened strongly on Wednesday for a film with few stars, with just under $4 million. This should translate into about $12 million on the weekend.
Star Trek Beyond dipped significantly from the previous entries in the reboot franchise, with an opening weekend of $59 million. Disappointment from Into Darkness, combined with what I think has to be franchise fatigue this far into summer both played their part in this opening weekend, and it should see a fair drop to about $35 million this frame.
The Secret Life of Pets holds the flame for family audiences in its fourth weekend, and should earn about $18 million, pushing it close to the $300 million plateau. It's been largely a family film year, with four of the seven films to break $200 million domestic (soon to be $300) so far in 2016 falling into that category.
That's cold comfort to the latest in the Ice Age series, which may have finally worn out its welcome at the fifth entry and just a $21 million opening weekend, less than half of the previous film's. Worldwide box office may continue to be strong on this one (it was one of the original bellwethers to show that international figures were becoming important) but with what looks like a sub $80 million domestic total, further entries may be hard to justify, at least theatrically. It should bring in about $12 million here.
Horror film Lights Out was more efficient with its $21 million, coming as it does from a $5 million production budget. Still, as a horror film, heavy drop off is inevitable, and I'd expect about $9 million this weekend for it. Lastly, in terms of significance, we have Ghostbusters, which took about a 54 percent hit for its second weekend – a little high for a tentpole film these days, but not all-world bad. It certainly won't be matching the 1984 film's $240 million domestic, and should bring in about $10 million this frame.
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Forecast: Weekend of July 29-31, 2016
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of
Sites |
Changes in Sites
from Last |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
Jason Bourne
|
4,026
|
New
|
62.2
|
|
2
|
Star Trek Beyond
|
3,928
|
No change
|
34.8
|
|
3
|
Bad Moms
|
3,215
|
New
|
26.6
|
|
4
|
The Secret Life of Pets
|
3,673
|
-375
|
18.1
|
|
5
|
Nerve
|
2,538
|
New
|
12.0
|
|
6
|
Ice Age Collision Course
|
3,997
|
+5
|
11.3
|
|
7
|
Ghostbusters
|
3,052
|
-911
|
10.4
|
|
8
|
Lights Out
|
2,835
|
+17
|
9.3
|
|
9
|
Finding Dory
|
1,733
|
-843
|
4.7
|
|
10
|
The Legend of Tarzan
|
1,503
|
-1,341
|
4.0
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
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