The Christmas holiday is pushing traditional studio weekend estimates into Sunday, as studio reporting takes the day off to tally up the extended weekend’s earnings. A number of films are filing Saturday estimates, however, painting a clearer picture on what went down at the box office.
Disney won’t be reporting weekend estimates until Monday morning, but Star Wars: Rogue One is expected to close the four-day holiday with close to $90 million. That means the Star Wars spin-off could cross two important milestone as early as Sunday: $300 million domestically and $500 million worldwide. The studio’s Moana also showed legs on the holiday weekend, with indications it would finish the four-day frame with nearly $15 million –ahead of new openers Assassin’s Creed and Why Him?.
Sing put in a good performance in its debut and is expected to finish the three-day weekend with $33.17 million after opening mid-week at 4,022 locations. Universal expects the Illumination animated release to hit a $50.91 million four-day weekend that would put its six-day total at $71.52 million.
Sony is expecting Passengers to finish the four-day weekend in the $22-23 million range, lifting its total to $29-30 million by Monday. The sci-fi flick is playing across 3,478 locations, raising eyebrows after soft showings on Friday ($4.5M) and Saturday ($2.8M). Passengers is due to rebound on Christmas Day, Sony is projecting a $6.9 million haul on Sunday.
Assassin’s Creed opened mid-week and should finish the three-day weekend at $10.3 million. The studio expects four-day grosses to come in at $15.1 million for a $22.5 million total. Putting those numbers into context, Assassin’s Creed is opening in-between recent video game adaptations Hitman: Agent 47 ($8.2M) and Warcraft ($24.1M). It’s not a very reassuring sign, as neither of those comps was released on a holiday weekend with a star like Michael Fassbender to target cross-over audiences. Hitman: Agent 47 finished its run in North America with $22.4 million while Warcraft failed to gain traction in subsequent weeks domestically, ending its run in North America with $47.2 million. Warcraft saw its luck change overseas, particularly in China, and it looks like Assassin’s Creed will have to put in a similar performance in order to reverse course. The Fox release opened in 22 markets this weekend and brought in $14.2 million to combine for what will likely be a $36.7 million global debut come Monday. France ($5.1M) and Spain ($2M) posted the top overseas debuts for the film this weekend.
R-rated comedy Why Him?, another Fox release, opened on Friday to $3.9 million and is expected to finish the three-day frame at $9.8 million. The comedy is estimated to round up its holiday weekend debut on Monday with $14.3 million. Another R-rated comedy, Office Christmas Party, celebrated its third weekend with a $5 million haul in the three-day frame and is expected to reach $7 million for the full four-day weekend, taking its total to $44 million.
Collateral Beauty entered its second weekend with a point to prove, but indications coming from Warner Bros. puts the film at $3.6 million in its sophomore frame. It would amount to a 49% slide from last weekend’s disappointing debut and a $14.6 million cume. Not far behind is the studio’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, expected to finish the three-day weekend with a $2.5 million haul that would lift its domestic total to $213.8 million.
Manchester by the Sea grossed $3 million from 1,213 screens over the weekend, taking its total to an impressive $19.7 million as it continues to receive accolades from critics groups nationwide.
LIMITED RELEASE
Martin Scorsese’s Silence is making noise in its limited debut, taking $125k from only 4 locations in the three-day weekend. Paramount expects the four-day total to come out to $170k and a $42.5k per-screen average.
Lion enters Christmas Day with an estimated $175k from 55 screens from its Friday and Saturday grosses, according to The Weinstein Company. The film added 39 screens for Friday and Saturday, netting $90 and $85 thousand on each day respectively. A three-day estimate is not available, however, as the film expands to 500 runs on Christmas day as its positioning in the awards race heats up. Denzel Washington’s Fences is in a similar position, as it entered a significant Christmas-day expansion with $240k grossed from 4 locations across the last two weekends. Three and four day estimates for these two films will be coming in Monday morning.
Patriots Day opened across 7 locations in limited release on Wednesday, focusing on major cities in the country’s East coast: Boston, New York, and Washington D.C. The dramatic thriller showed resiliency on Saturday, dropping only 35% from Friday’s $52k to net $34k and a $4,905 per-screen average. Patriots Day has brought in a total of $182k since its Wednesday debut. The film is on track to posting a $40k per-screen average for the six-day holiday week (Wednesday-Monday), a debut comparable to Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino which went on to gross $148 million following its December 2008 release.
Pedro Almodovar’s Julieta also opened in limited release on Wednesday. The film is expected to finish the three-day weekend with $69k from 6 screens and an $11,666 per-screen average.
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