Friday Box Office Analysis
By Kim Hollis
November 24, 2018
BoxOfficeProphets.com
After earning $28.8 million on Wednesday and Thanksgiving Thursday, Ralph Breaks the Internet came in with a spectacular $21.7 million for Black Friday. People certainly found time to catch a movie in the midst of all the shopping madness. With $50.5 million in its coffers, Wreck-It Ralph 2 has exceeded the first three days of the original film ($49 million). Although that film released earlier in the month, it did have the exact same holiday pattern several weeks later as Thanksgiving that year was also on November 22nd. If a similar pattern holds, Ralph Breaks the Internet will earn $54.5 million over the Friday-to-Sunday portion of the weekend and tally about $83.3 million for the five day portion of the holiday. Then, it's going to be the only real kid-friendly (or just about anyone-friendly) option until December 14th, when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse swings into theaters.
A sequel to the popular and critically acclaimed Creed, Creed II followed its Wednesday/Thursday box office take of $20.5 million with a Black Friday total of $14.1 million. That means the Rocky franchise film has $34.6 million so far, which is pretty awesome when you consider that the first film earned $109.8 million TOTAL from domestic venues. For Friday-through-Sunday, MGM will likely estimate the film at $38.3 million (though they might bump up to $40 million), which means it will be sitting with about $60 million domestically after just five days. With an A Cinemascore, audiences are plenty happy with this one, so I see no reason it shouldn't continue to chug along.
You'd be forgiven for not knowing that a weird Robin Hood film was released this weekend. Starring Kingsman's Taron Edgerton and Jamie Fox as Little John, it just found no traction whatsoever, probably because reviews were scathing (11 percent fresh at Rotten Tomatoes) and the Cinemascore was just blah at a B. It has $8.5 million total and earned $3.5 million yesterday. Lionsgate will probably give it the benefit of the doubt and estimate the weekend at $10 million.
Green Book expanded from a handful of theaters last weekend to 1,063 on Wednesday. After almost $2 million on Wednesday and Thursday, it added $2 million yesterday as well. $6 million is the likely tally for Friday-through-Sunday. It's not going to be a huge awards season impact, but it does have heartwarming enough commercials that older audiences are likely to want to see it.
No one is interested in seeing a movie about Gary Hart. Do most of you reading this even know who Gary Hart is? Anyway, Hugh Jackman stars in the film about the politician who was once beloved but wound up disgraced. It earned just $235,000 from about 800 locations yesterday, and should pretty much disappear without much of an impression.
As for last weekend's big release, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, it declined 54 percent from last Friday (which admittedly had a lot of Thursday sneaks packed in). Let's call it about $32 million for Friday-to-Sunday, as it crosses the $100 million mark today. It's definitely pacing behind the first film domestically, but international box office is going to make up for the deficit.