Weekend Forecast: ‘Inferno’

Last weekend, four new films saw wide release. This weekend has just one. Not only does that mean this writer only has to do 25 percent of the work when researching this week’s Weekend Forecast article compared to last week, but it also virtually guarantees first place for the one new title: Sony’s thriller sequel Inferno.

Yet with Halloween weekend coming up, could last weekend’s leader, Lionsgate’s Boo! A Madea Halloween, hold on unexpectedly strong? And could last weekend’s second-place film, Paramount’s action sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, mimic its predecessor’s incredibly small 10.6 percent second-weekend decline? If either of those two things happen, Inferno might have some stiff competition after all.

Inferno (Sony / Columbia)

PROS:

• All of the film’s potential competition has been removed. Paramount’s horror sequel Rings was originally scheduled for this same weekend, but was pushed back to February 3 only a month ago — the 11th hour in Hollywood terms. And an as-yet-untitled horror film from Lionsgate was also originally scheduled for this weekend, but was moved to a to-be-determined date.
• Tom Hanks is coming off his starring role in September’s Sully, which has been the highest-grossing film of the fall season by a margin of tens of millions of dollars, with $120.9 million and counting as of this writing. Its closest competitor during the fall has been The Magnificent Seven with $89.2 million.
• The original novel by Dan Brown was the highest-selling book of 2013, the year it came out, according to USA Today. Also among that year’s top 20 bestsellers, which Inferno beat: Catching Fire, Gone Girl, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Fault in Our Stars, and Divergent. All those film adaptations earned at least nine figures at the box office.
• Inferno is the first wide release starring Felicity Jones since her breakout performance in 2014’s The Theory of Everything, which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination.
• The film has been doing fantastic box office overseas, ahead of its domestic release. It started with $49.7 million overseas in 64 markets two weekends ago, good for first place at the overseas box office. Last weekend it earned $28.7 million in 69 markets, for second place at the overseas box office behind Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.

CONS:

• Although Inferno is the only new wide release this year, at least three other films are competing for the same “adult thriller” audience demographic: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, last weekend’s second-place film; The Accountant, last weekend’s fourth-place title; and The Girl on the Train, last weekend’s fifth-place title.
• Inferno is the the third film starring Hanks as the iconic character Robert Langdon, after 2006’s The Da Vinci Code and 2009’s Angels & Demons. The previous films in the franchise, Code and Angels made $217.5 million and $133.3 million, respectively — or about $287.6 million and $160.8 million when adjusted for ticket price inflation. While both impressive numbers, Angels only sold about 55 percent as many tickets domestically as Code. While it still earned enough to greenlight a sequel, that may indicate that the fan base for the series could be slipping.
• Inferno‘s aforementioned overseas box office success does not guarantee domestic success. Warcraft and Bridget Jones’s Baby are two examples of films this year alone that have gone huge overseas but tanked in America.

Check out the official Boxoffice Pro weekend forecast in the table below. Shawn Robbins, Jesse Rifkin, and Alex Edghill contributed to this report.

Boxoffice Pro predicts the top 10 will earn a cumulative $79.19 million total this weekend. That would be 27.4 percent below the $109.12 million earned by the top 10 films last weekend, but  35.5 percent above the $58.43 million earned by the top 10 films on this same weekend last year, when The Martian led four a fourth non-consecutive frame with $11.71 million.