Weekend Predictions: Will Hateful Experience any Love? Will Star Wars hit the Century Mark?
December 31, 2015
There are two questions that are being asked about this weekend. Firstly, will Star Wars: The Force Awakens become the first film to earn $100 million three weekends in a row? Secondly, will The Hateful Eight live up to Django Unchained? I'm going to say no to both, but the former is much more likely than the latter. The rest of the top five should look the same as last time, with Daddy's Home being the best of the holdovers. The Force Awakens should earn more than the top five did last year, giving 2016 a fast start on the year-over-year comparison.
One last note, there are only two limited releases this week, including Anomalisa, which we previously talked about. The only other limited release is Devil and Angel, which has no reviews, so there's not much to talk about. Because of this, there will be no Limited Release Report this week.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens will earn first place this weekend and will break records in the process. The only question is, how many? Fastest to $650 million, Fastest to $700 million, Biggest third weekend, Biggest January weekend, Biggest Domestic Hit of 2015, etc. (Some of these records will be set before the weekend.) The biggest question is whether or not it will earn $100 million over the weekend. Looking at the numbers from the midweek, it appears to be on pace for just over $90 million to just under $105 million over the weekend. This means a third $100 million weekend is possible, but not a sure thing. I think Sunday estimates will have it just over $100 million, but Monday's finals will be dialed back to $98 million. That will put its running tally just past $750 million, again in record time, but it will have to wait a day or so to overtake Avatar for Biggest All-Time Domestic Box-Office hit.
Daddy's Home got off to a much faster than expected start last weekend and it is racing towards $100 million as we speak. Look for $22 million over the weekend for a total of $88 million after ten days of release. With everyone back at work / school next week, it could have to wait till next weekend to get to $100 million, but it will get there. That's great news for the studio, which hasn't had a particularly good year with only two previous $100 million hits.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip has held onto third place throughout the week and because this is the last chance for families to go to the movies before school begins again, it should do well over the weekend. It should earn just over $14 million over the weekend, which is a little more than it earned last weekend.
The Hateful Eight had one of the best limited release openings of the year last weekend, when you take into account its theater count. However, its Wednesday wide expansion didn't go as well as expected and it had to settle for fourth place with $3.53 million. Originally, I thought the film would make over $20 million during its first weekend of wide release, but this is not a good start. Worse still, the film's release strategy is practically unheard of, so there are not a lot of other films to compare it to. In fact, most years no film opens wide this weekend, so we can't even use that as a comparison. Hopefully it will bounce back, but I think fourth place with $14 million is more likely.
Sisters should round out the top five with $12 million. It is not going to reach $100 million at the box office, but it is going to get close enough to be a financial success.
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- Weekend Wrap-Up: The Force Awakens Earns $149.20 million and Daddy Hits Home Run
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- Theater Averages: Star Wars Set Another Record with $59,982
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- Weekend Estimates: Force Awakens with Projected All Time Best 238 Million
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- Critics go Mad for The Force Awakens
- Star Wars Path to Avatars Three Titanic Records
- Eight Records Star Wars Needs to Break
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- Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- Star Wars franchise history
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens Recent Comparisons
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens All-Time Comparisons
- Theatrical Records
Filed under: Weekend Preview, Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, Sisters, The Hateful Eight, Anomalisa, Daddy’s Home, E gun tian shi, Star Wars