Weekend Forecast: ‘Rings,’ ‘The Space Between Us’

Can anything prevent Universal’s Split from leading for an improbable third consecutive weekend? Two new films will try. Paramount’s horror competitor Rings stands the best shot. STX Entertainment also releases their sci-fi romance The Space Between Us.

Rings (Paramount)

PROS:

“First you watch it, then you die.” That’s the tagline for this horror that sequel takes place 13 years after the classic 2002 film The Ring. The original about a haunted VHS tape which caused the death of anybody who watched it after seven days is now updated to be about an Internet video instead. The original The Ring earned $129.1 million in 2002, or approximately $192.3 million adjusted for ticket price inflation, one of the highest grosses for any horror film of the 21st century.

CONS:

2005’s sequel The Ring Two earned “only” $76.2 million, and that had the benefits of coming out only three years after the original while returning the lead star Naomi Watts, which this film doesn’t. Rings brings to mind this past September’s horror Blair Witch, which came out 17 years after 1999’s classic The Blair Witch Project, but only sold about one-tenth as many tickets. Plus Rings was originally scheduled for release on October 28, a potential missed opportunity three days prior to Halloween. Instead it’s now up against the still-going-strong horror competitor Split, which has led the box office for the past two weekends.

The Space Between Us (STX Entertainment)

PROS:

Asa Butterfield stars in the science-fiction romance about the first human born and raised on Mars who moves to Earth as a teenager and falls in love with an “Earthling” girl. Butterfield is coming off a moderate box office hit as the lead of September’s Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children which has earned $87.2 million. Plus it likely made a smart scheduling move, pushing back to February after being originally scheduled for December 16 against fellow sci-fi competitor Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which would go on to become the highest-grossing 2016 film domestically.

CONS:

Our tracking through social media and online isn’t producing the kind of numbers the film has probably been hoping for, such as trailer views. It may be seen as too similar to the similar sci-fi romance Passengers from just more than a month ago — a sleeper hit with $96.2 million and counting. Plus it may face competition from the fellow space-themed Hidden Figures which is still going strong, as a better-reviewed film coming off the heels of several Oscar nominations including Best Picture.

 

Boxoffice Pro projects the top 10 films this weekend will earn a cumulative $74.29 million. That’s 33.4 percent below the $111.65 million earned by the top 10 last weekend, and 37.2 percent below the $118.35 million earned by the top 10 on this weekend last year, when Kung Fu Panda 3 led with $41.28 million.

Check out the official Boxoffice Pro weekend forecast in the table below.

Title Distributor Weekend Domestic Total through Sunday 2/5/17 Change
Split Universal $13,500,000 $97,600,000 -47.4%
Rings Paramount $10,500,000 $10,500,000 New
A Dog’s Purpose Universal $9,700,000 $32,000,000 -46.8%
Hidden Figures Fox $9,100,000 $118,200,000 -35.0%
La La Land Lionsgate / Summit $8,800,000 $120,000,000 -28.1%
The Space Between Us STX Entertainment $6,250,000 $6,250,000 New
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter Sony / Screen Gems $4,490,000 $22,140,000 -67.0%
Sing Universal $4,490,000 $263,370,000 -29.9%
xXx: The Return of Xander Cage Paramount $4,300,000 $40,790,000 -50.0%
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Disney $3,160,000 $524,820,000 -40.1%

Shawn Robbins, Jesse Rifkin, and Alex Edghill contributed to this report.