Friday Estimates: Dog Doesn’t Have Universal Appeal
January 28, 2017
Friday was the beginning of a good weekend for Universal, but it wasn’t a good day for the box office as a whole, as two of the three new wide releases struggled. Split was down just 46% when compared to last Friday and earned $7.9 million. Assuming it acts like, well, practically every film ever made, it will have an even better Saturday and that puts it on pace to earn about $25 million over the weekend. It will top $100 million during the first weekend of February and will still be in wide release over Presidents’ Day long weekend. This is fantastic news for the studio.
Universal is also the studio behind A Dog’s Purpose, which opened in second place with $5.3 million. Its reviews are really bad, but it earned an A from CinemaScore, which suggests a bigger family appeal. This will help it grow on Saturday and earn $18 million over the weekend. This isn’t a bad start for a film that cost $25 million to make.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter won’t be as lucky. While the film did well during Thursday previews, it collapsed on Friday. It managed a close third place for the day with $5.1 million, but it won’t have the same legs due to a number of factors. Firstly, it’s not a good movie and only managed a B from CinemaScore. Horror films also tend to have shorter legs, as do sequels. This adds up to a $12 million opening weekend and a rather quick exit from theaters.
As expected, Hidden Figures and La La Land will both cross the $100 million mark this weekend. Hidden Figures topped La La Land at the box office on Friday with $3.78 million to $3.45 million, but La La Land will get to $100 million on Saturday, while Hidden Figures will have to wait until Sunday to reach that milestone.
Way down the list we find Gold with $1.16 million in just over 2,166 theaters. Its going to miss the Mendoza Line. Its reviews are only 37% positive and it was the worst with CinemaScore at just a B minus, so its legs won’t be good. It will earn closer to $3 million than $4 million and theater owners will dump it as soon as they are contractually able to.
- Resident Evil: The Final Chapter Comparisons
- A Dog’s Purpose Comparisons
- Gold Comparisons
Filed under: Friday Estimates, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, Gold, La La Land, Split, Hidden Figures, A Dog’s Purpose