You’ve got to like the fierce competition at the top of the box office this weekend, in fact I’m going against tracking and taking family over slo-mo. Mr. Peabody & Sherman is my champion, and for comparison’s sake I like The Croods as a similar March release that burst onto the scene without any sequel legs to support it. I’m going slightly higher than even that film at $45.6 million for the talking dog. People like animals more than cavemen, and at least a million people will wander in thinking the movie is about Brian from “Family Guy”. There are no sure things in box office predictions, but I feel good about Mr. Peabody and Sherman over-performing.
On the under-performing side would be 300: Rise of Empire. The original made significantly more than this prediction, but that was all the way back in 2007, and the market has the memory of a mid-sized gnat. Plus it just looks … not good. Working against my argument is the fact that it’s at 56 percent on RottenTomatoes while the original only came in at 60 percent, so perhaps there’s not a qualitative argument to be made either way. Regardless, I’m pegging it at $44.9 million for its opening weekend.
Non-Stop shouldn’t face too much turbulence this weekend, though the crossover of people who stayed away to watch The Academy Awards on Sunday is probably pretty minimal. The A- CinemaScore leads me to believe this won’t face a massive drop-off, so I’m only dipping it 48 percent down to $15 million flat. With a $50 million production budget the film is in decent enough shape, especially if you’re of the opinion that it will do double overseas. I am of that opinion.
Finally we get to Son of God. Do church groups frontload the box office? It’s an interesting question, but not one I have any real data on, these films happen so rarely. Fireproof and The Nativity Story both had great carryover numbers, but Joyful Noise didn’t. As per normal, your guess is as good as mine, probably slightly better. $14.4 million is my number, I expect y’all to have a better one.
Your turn, glad to be back, looking forward to another weekend of box office hijinks.
Current Record: 6-26 against the wisdom of the crowds.
Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
- 300: Rise of an Empire: $47.3
- Mr. Peabody & Sherman: $40.0
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
