Friday Box Office Analysis
By Kim Hollis
June 9, 2018
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Ocean's 8, the restart of the franchise with Sandra Bullock as the Ocean character, started with a terrific $15.8 million yesterday. That number does include $4 million in previews, and puts the "true" Friday box office take at $11.8 million. Seriously, though. With pretty good reviews (and perhaps impacted by a little sexism at Rotten Tomatoes) and a B+ Cinemascore, I'd expect audiences to continue to respond positively to this heist flick, particularly since there hasn't been much new or worthwhile unless you're Solo. And I suspect that there's a distinct audience divergence between the two properties.
Overall, I'd put Ocean's 8's weekend take at $41 million or so, which would be good enough for it to claim the highest debut for the entire franchise (that's not really true if you factor in ticket inflation, but it's a nifty claim nonetheless). Considering the $70 million budget, this is going to be a solid debut.
Second place goes not to the third weekend of Solo, but rather to Hereditary, a buzzed-about horror film from A24. This movie has gotten some strong buzz thanks to a 94 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes and lots of positive feedback from screenings at SXSW. However, audiences might be confounded by it since the Cinemascore came in at a D+. BOP's J. Don Birnam says it gave him nightmares, so we think it's fair to say that you ought to go and judge for yourself.
With a strong $5.2 million Friday, Hereditary's weekend total should wind up right around $12 million. It's been another banner year for horror, with Blumhouse providing some solid entries and Hereditary and A Quiet Place both garnering some good attention. A small $10 million budget means that Hereditary will be a nice earner, too.
Finally, we have the sad entry on the list. Hotel Artemis, a movie that had almost no marketing, earned $1.1 million. I guess that's pretty exceptional considering the fact that I think I saw a single Instagram ad for it. From distributor Global Road, it's going to earn just about $2.6 million for the weekend and then go on to be long forgotten.
Solo: A Star Wars Story recovered some from its heady drop last weekend. Where last Friday it fell 77 percent, its box office yesterday was just a 50 percent Friday-over-Friday decline. With $17.6 million for the weekend, it'll press on toward $200 million. No one thought it would take it this long to get there.