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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them starts out with $29.6 million on Friday. This is fine, but seems mediocre in the face of the Harry Potter franchise, when Deathly Hallows Part 2 earned $43.5 million on Thursday night showings alone (Fantastic Beasts took in $8.7 million on Thursday). It’s a fine start as we head into Thanksgiving next weekend, when over the long weekend the decline will be minimal. While it’s obviously benefiting from the Potter connections, it’s essentially a new franchise and one people are approaching with caution despite the good reviews and JK Rowling connection (she wrote the screenplay). For the weekend, Fantastic Beasts is looking at a lower than anticipated, but still good, weekend of about $73.4 million.

The Edge of Seventeen

Teen drama and not Stevie Nicks biopic The Edge of Seventeen is a disappointment with just $1.7 million on Friday, good for seventh place for the day. The toughest of tough sells, Edge of Seventeen has critical acclaim (95% at Rotten Tomatoes) but I’d venture that the majority of the target audience went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them instead. It’s headed towards a weekend of $5 million and is probably not even in the conversation when we’re looking at Thanksgiving box office next weekend.

Bleed For This

Boxing drama Bleed For This can only manage about $900k on Friday, though in just 1,549 theaters. The interesting and inspirational story is buried under all the higher profile new releases of the last few weeks, and was probably clinging to faint hopes for some awards attention for Miles Teller, but we can forget about that. Look for a little over $3 million on the weekend.

Doctor Strange

After two weekends at the top, Doctor Strange adds another $4.7 million on Friday as it looks to hit $200 million by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. Fantastic Beasts took some wind of out its sails as it's down 68% from last Friday but that was also propped up a little bit by Veterans Day (though not nearly as much as Trolls was). It should add another $18 million to its total this weekend.

Arrival

Last weekend's top opener Arrival takes a bigger than expected hit with $3.4 million, a Friday-to-Friday drop of 64%. It's still a Best Picture contender and Amy Adams is a likely Best Actress nominee, but any hope for strong legs just went out the window. Look for a weekend of $11.5 million.