5-day Weekend #s: DM3 99M, BD 29.97M, WW 24.07M, TF5 24.05M, Cars 3 14.2M, House 11.9M

[Webslinger]

Despicable Me 3 opened much, much softer than expected. Even worst case scenario, I didn't expect it to open under its predecessor, which burnt off nearly $60 million of demand heading into its first weekend. I'm guessing that a combination of franchise fatigue, not pushing an intriguing new direction in the ad campaign, and the less enthusiastic reception of Minions all worked against it. Nevertheless, it has kids all to itself for a while (even if Spider-Man will probably pull down a decent-sized family crowd next weekend) and will make a mint off of merchandise and home video sales, so it will still be a big winner for Universal - just not as big as the franchise entries preceding it. I feel like the softness of this opening also speaks retroactively to just how massive The Secret Life of Pets was last year. Even as a non-sequel (albeit a non-sequel with a near-perfect ad campaign), it opened 38.5% higher than Despicable Me 3.

 

I'm really satisfied with Baby Driver's performance. Edgar Wright's appeal has been strictly niche to this point, so seeing the film start with $30 million in five days is quite encouraging. I think the difference-maker here may have been other, bigger action films' failure to connect as forcefully with audiences as is typical in the summer season. With poor word-of-mouth for Transformers, the non-starter performance from The Mummy, and the dearth of satisfying non-superhero action films (and comedies, for that matter), mainstream audiences outside of Wright's usual demo were probably more willing than usual to give it a chance. It has a challenging road ahead against the much-buzzed-about action films coming down the pike this month, but I'm hopeful that it can still ride positive word-of-mouth to a leggy run from here on out.

 

Transformers 5 dropped even harder than Revenge of the Fallen in its second weekend, and that's without the 4th of July to act as an excuse for its performance. It could still ride summer weekdays to a total in the ballpark of $140 million, but missing $150 million is quite a dubious feat for a franchise that had cranked out huge grosses despite piss-poor reviews and lukewarm receptions (with the exception of the first one, of course) through this point.

 

I'm happy to see that Wonder Woman is still kicking ass. Here's to hoping that the next month of action flicks doesn't wipe away its chances at hitting the $400 million milestone. Whether it ends up north or south of that mark, however, it's still a massive success for handily taking its place as the DCEU's highest-grossing film to date.

 

Cars 3 was obliterated in the face of direct competition, as expected. It should begin to recover a bit after this weekend, but reaching $150 million may prove to be too great a challenge. 

 

The House continues mainstream comedy's recent dry spell. Like other duds as of late, it failed because of a consistently unfunny ad campaign. Nevertheless, there's something especially jarring about a Will Ferrell comedy opening in the single digits in the middle of the summer. Ouch.

 

47 Meters Down has held up significantly better than I ever expected it would. Even without much star power to speak of, it will put up a respectable total.

 

The Beguiled expanded solidly, but it's going to drop like a rock after this weekend if the confused and restless audience I saw it with last night is any indication of how the film is playing in mainstream multiplexes.

[YM!]

Sony might have a strong summer this year.

BD: $100M

SMHC: $300M

Emoji: $120M

DT: $110M

Edited July 2, 2017 by YourMother

[Nova]

Just now, YourMother said:

Sony might have a strong summer this year.

BD: $100M

SMHC: $300M

Emoji: $120M

They had a very strong summer last year too 

[Johnny Tran]

I thought DM3 would hurt Cars 3 but it looks like Cars 3 is doing shitty all by itself.  Good.  Hopefully parents stop buying the toys too. Horrible franchise. 

[ttr]

We're halfway through the year so let's compare this year to last year (to the weekend, not to the date):
 
1. Captain America: Civil War - 405M
2. Finding Dory - 372M
3. Deadpool - 363M
4. The Jungle Book - 359M
5. Zootopia - 341M
6. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - 330M
7. X-Men: Apocalypse - 154M
8. Kung Fu Panda 3 - 143M
9. The Angry Birds Movie - 106M
10. The Conjuring 2 - 95M
 
Average B.O.: 267M
Average RT: 65% (6 fresh, 4 rotten)
Breaks down to 6 sequels, 4 non-sequels.
 
1. Beauty and the Beast - 504M
2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - 383M
3. Wonder Woman - 347M
4. Logan - 226M
5. The Fate of the Furious - 225M
6. The LEGO Batman Movie - 176M
7. Get Out - 175M
8. The Boss Baby - 174M
9. Kong: Skull Island - 167M
10. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - 165M
 
Average B.O.: 254M
Average RT: 75%(8 fresh, 2 rotten)
Breaks down to 4 sequels, 6 non-sequels

Interesting, nice. Is Kong: Skull Island the fourth sequel? Or Logan?

[kayumanggi]

32 minutes ago, John Marston said:

 

 

Japan, Mexico, and Brazil and rest of Latin America are the main ones 

 

Capitalizing on a barren August.

 

07.06

Cyprus

 

07.07

Latvia

 

07.12

Egypt

 

07.20

Argentina

Brazil

Chile

Colombia

Panama

Peru

 

07.21

Mexico

Venezuela

 

07.28

Spain

 

08.04

Israel

Japan

 

 

[BenedictL11]

1 minute ago, Webslinger said:

I'm really satisfied with Baby Driver's performance. Edgar Wright's appeal has been strictly niche to this point, so seeing the film start with $30 million in five days is quite encouraging. I think the difference-maker here may have been other, bigger action films' failure to connect as forcefully with audiences as is typical in the summer season. With poor word-of-mouth for Transformers, the non-starter performance from The Mummy, and the dearth of satisfying non-superhero action films (and comedies, for that matter), mainstream audiences outside of Wright's usual demo were probably more willing than usual to give it a chance. It has a challenging road ahead against the much-buzzed-about action films coming down the pike this month, but I'm hopeful that it can still ride positive word-of-mouth to a leggy run from here on out.

 

Although I love your post about this, I think it will benefit from spillover business from Spiderman: Homecoming. With families occupied with this and DM3, BD will be next on moviegoers' must see list. Look at this post:

1 minute ago, BenedictL11 said:

 

 

For example, an opening similar to it (This is the End) held well against tough competition (Man of Steel, World War Z, Monsters University, The Heat, and Despicable Me 2). $100M total wouldn't surprise me for this wonderful hit and this one had better WOM than TITE.

 

Heck, The Shallows only got a 3.28 multiplier thanks to tough competition despite decent WOM. If BD follows that route, it will finish with around $78m, which would be the worse case scenario. However, this has more appeal in terms of demographics and much better WOM than TS. 

[Johnny Tran]

2 hours ago, Cmasterclay said:

I'm feeling a Spider-Man Homecoming underperformance btw (relative to expectations and yada yada). I've seen a ton of people in my feeds posting stuff like "They're making another Spider-Man??" and "Why are we getting another Spider-Man instead of X?" (usually a female led superhero like Catwoman or Captain Marvel, a valid complaint tbh). There's alot more of that bemused pessimism than hype hype hype among a large contingent of the general audience. Most people don't understand the dynamics of how this is now part of the MCU or caught on to the good reception yet. To them, it's just another freakin Spider-Man. Plus, presale data is ehhhhhh, it's lower than WW and I don't really see why this would have a better presales to opening ratio than that. I'm thinking around TASM 2 opening but with far better legs. 

 

That and the trailers make it look like Iron Man 4.  I know people here were quick to tell me this isn't the case but I didn't want Stark anywhere near the movie. I'll be seeing it on Saturday. I am hoping it's good,  I don't trust critics on a movie like this.  Too many fanboys freaking out because Spidey is in the MCU now,  it's hilarious, who cares. I just want a good movie. 

[MCKillswitch123]

20 minutes ago, CJohn said:

WB is sharing posts on facebook talking about the 100% RT score. THE POWER OF THE TOMATO LAW. WARNER BROS. KNOWS IT.

 

 

It not just WB that's catching up to the TOMATO LAW powah... I've gotten some Baby Driver ads on YouTube, and they also play that it's "98% CERTIFIED FRESH ON ROTTEN TOMATOES". It's real. It's very real.

 

Speaking of which, I for a moment thought that Baby Driver was probably gonna get slaughtered by Homecoming.... until I remembered, "oh shit, both of them are Sony films! Therefore, double features will probably happen". If so, BD is definitely looking at a sub 50% drop next weekend, and maybe, juuuuust maybe... it can leg it out to 100M? 

 

Also, for the record, the top 10 films of the Summer '17 so far:

 

01. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 - 383.3M

02. Wonder Woman - 346.6M

03. Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - 165.5M

04. Cars 3 - 120.7M

05. Transformers: The Last Knight - 102.1M

06. Despicable Me 3 - 75.4M

07. The Mummy - 74.5M

08. Alien: Covenant - 73.7M

09. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie - 69.4M

10. Baywatch - 57.2M

TOTAL: 1.468.4B

 

Top 10 Summer '16 after 3-day Independence Day weekend:

 

01. Captain America: Civil War - 405.4M

02. Finding Dory - 372.2M

03. X-Men: Apocalypse - 153.5M

04. The Angry Birds Movie - 105.7M

05. The Conjuring 2 - 95.3M

06. Central Intelligence - 91.9M

07. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows - 79.5M

08. Alice Through The Looking Glass - 75.7M

09. Independence Day: Resurgence - 72.9M

10. Now You See Me 2 - 58.7M

TOTAL: 1.510.8B

 

2017's Top 10 trailing by about 40M. Let's see if Homecoming can counter Secret Life Of Pets making landfall the next week to avoid 2017 trailing by even more at this point.

[meriodejaneiro]

5 minutes ago, Johnny Tran said:

I thought DM3 would hurt Cars 3 but it looks like Cars 3 is doing shitty all by itself.  Good.  Hopefully parents stop buying the toys too. Horrible franchise. 

yeah sure parents will stop buying toys to their kids just because you want to ... keep dreaming. If Cars 1 and Cars 2 sold $10B+ in merchandise themselves ... Cars 3 can get easily $2-3B itself on an eye blink.

[Webslinger]

I was actually thinking of This Is the End as a possible indicator that Baby Driver can leg it out to $100 million, but we'll have to wait and see. 

[Jake Gittes]

Between Cars, TF and DM3 my preseason in the summer game is looking a lot better than it three-four weeks ago. I failed Edgar Wright but then who didn't.

 

Now let's go with SM under 300m and Apes over 200m.

[Johnny Tran]

2 hours ago, Nova said:

I swear sometimes this forum makes no sense. So SMH a film that apparently the casual audience isn't excited for, should have better presales than WW? 

 

Why? If no one is excited for it then why should its presales be higher than WW's? 

 

Spider-Man is the most popular hero outside of Batman. I don't know if people are excited or not but just having the title "Spider-Man" should be enough for $120M+ OW.  We know Batman would do it. 

[ZeeSoh]

32 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

These were the summer game predictions for DM3:

 

JJ-8 - 421.7m
jj99 - 400m
MovieMan - 365m
Matrix4You - 360m
darkelf - 355m
bcf26 - 355m
damnitgeorge08 - 353m
Exxdee - 350m
Tree - 350m
kayumanggi - 350m
Fancyarcher - 345m
24Lost - 343m
DamienRoc - 343m
aabattery - 340m
Grey Ghost - 335m
narniads - 331m
Spaghetti - 330m
Baumer - 330m
MrPink - 330m
Simionski - 330m
The Dark Alfred - 327m
That One Guy - 320m
WrathofHan - 320m
franfar - 320m
Empire - 316m
Cmasterclay - 315m
Wrath - 314m
grim22 - 310m
#ED - 310m
Goffe - 310m
Chaasmi - 307m
glassfairy - 300m
Mike Hunt - 300m
Telemachos - 295m
Kalo - 294m
Blankments - 289m
The Panda - 285m
Chewy - 280m
BastienGiot - 277m
Jake Gittes - 270m
Water Bottle - 236.7m

 

 

So pretty much everyone overestimated this one. It would need a 3.6x legs from 75 ow to reach 270. I dont think that is happening. Even 250 at this point is in doubt

[aabattery]

 
@aabattery don't listen to him, it's still funny

This is how you know the joke is really dead.

[WrathOfHan]

5 minutes ago, ZeeSoh said:

 

So pretty much everyone overestimated this one. It would need a 3.6x legs from 75 ow to reach 270. I dont think that is happening. Even 250 at this point is in doubt

I believe it needs a 3.33x to beat the first, which looks highly unlikely with the tepid reception and competition in July.

[Rman823]

8 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

RT Audience Score update:

 

BD: 92%

DM3: 70%

The Beguiled: 57%

The House: 46%

Does anyone else see Baby Driver as Breaking Dawn when it's abbreviated or is it just me ? 

[FantasticBeasts]

Apparently, Illumination is so worried right now... Rumours has it that they consider cancelling Minions 2..

 

The family film is the biggest animated movie opening weekend of all time in Argentina, Brazil, Estonia, Latvia, Venezuela and the Middle East. Estonia’s opening of $304,000 and Latvia’s opening of $240,000 are the biggest opening weekends ever in those territories.

In addition, it is the biggest opening weekend of the Despicable Me franchise, including Minions, in 11 territories, including Brazil, Argentina, and Egypt.

Despicable Me 3 opened at number one in the UK on $14.7m for a 56% market share, setting the record as the biggest opening Saturday of all time for an animated film.  In Mexico, Despicable Me is number one on $13.5m and a 74% market share. Meanwhile, Brazil debuted on $7.5m and a 63% market share.

Russia debuted on $9.2m, Spain has generated $5.5m and 58% market share, while Argentina had a $4.4m debut and 76% market share. The Netherlands produced $3.2m for a first place debut.

Despicable Me 3 is performing ahead of all comps at the same point of releae, except Minions which grossed $140m, beating Despicable Me 2, Frozen, Zootopia, Ice Age 4, Finding Dory, Toy Story 3, and The Secret Life of Pets.

[Nova]

16 minutes ago, Johnny Tran said:

 

Spider-Man is the most popular hero outside of Batman. I don't know if people are excited or not but just having the title "Spider-Man" should be enough for $120M+ OW.  We know Batman would do it. 

Batman Begins didn't even make half of that it's opening weekend and Lego Batman made $50M OW so no we don't know whether Batman would do it. 

 

Also besides Spider-man 3 not a single Spider-man film has opened over $120M and only one other opened over $100M which was the original. There's zero reason why SMH is automatic in going over $120M nor should that be the expectation for it. 

 

I said this when WW opened but people have become so used to $120M+ openers that they assume it's automatic for any big opener. Like I still remember the outrageous OW predictions for WW and it's like....but why? Just because other comic book films or other tent poles have done it, doesn't mean it's an easy thing to do. Getting over $100M is a feat in itself and if SMH manages to go over $100M in its OW that should be a win for it, all things considered. 

Edited July 2, 2017 by Nova

[Johnny Tran]

16 minutes ago, meriodejaneiro said:

yeah sure parents will stop buying toys to their kids just because you want to ... keep dreaming. If Cars 1 and Cars 2 sold $10B+ in merchandise themselves ... Cars 3 can get easily $2-3B itself on an eye blink.

 

I'm just happy the movie itself is failing, the toy sales dwindling would just be the icing on the cake.