Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
March 1, 2014
Non-Stop
Liam Neeson’s Non-Stop was on top on Friday with a solid $10 million. Despite middling reviews, credit goes to the, well, non-stop ads for the airplane thriller and Neeson’s continued strength as a draw in these films. It’s Oscar weekend, which means Sunday is a terrible day for box office. That will keep Non-Stop from potentially cracking the $30 million mark, but it will still come in with a respectable $26 million on the weekend.
Son of God
Making it a very close race on Friday is Son of God with an impressive $9.4 million. Finding an underserved niche in Christian audiences, the adaptation of the television miniseries stands a good chance of being the top entry on the weekend as it’s neck and neck with Non-Stop. I’ll give the slight edge to Son of God for the weekend title in that it’s less likely to be impacted by the Oscars than Non-Stop is. A weekend of $27.2 million for something that pretty much already aired on TV is a remarkable achievement.
The LEGO Movie
Things are less awesome this week for The LEGO Movie as it’s bumped to third place with $4.4 million on Friday (down 40% from last week) but by the end of today it’ll have crossed $200 million, the first 2014 film to do so. Another $17.6 million for the weekend gives it a good start to its march towards $300 million.
Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
|
Projected Rank |
Film |
Estimated Gross |
1
|
Son of God
|
27.2
|
2
|
Non-Stop
|
26.0
|
3
|
The LEGO Movie
|
17.6
|
4
|
The Monuments Men
|
4.5
|
5
|
3 Days to Kill
|
4.1
|
6
|
Robocop
|
3.8
|
7
|
Pompeii
|
3.5
|
8
|
About Last Night
|
3.1
|
9
|
Frozen
|
3.0
|
10
|
Ride Along
|
2.8
|