Weekend Estimates: Beauty and the Beast Beats Strong Power Rangers Start
March 26, 2017
An impressive 49% second-weekend drop for Beauty and the Beast will be more than enough to secure its place at the top of the box office chart once more, but that doesn’t diminish the achievement of Power Rangers in debuting with an estimated $40.5 million. With two strong movies powering box office receipts, a weekend that was expected to be down substantially from the comparable weekend last year, when Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice launched with $166 million, will actually be off just 20%, and 2017 remains 5% ahead of 2016 year-to-date.
Beauty and the Beast will have the fourth-best second weekend of all time this weekend, with Disney projecting $88.35 million. That’s better than Avengers: Age of Ultron managed second time around, and only behind the three giants: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, and The Avengers. Beauty is similarly the fourth-fastest film to reach $300 million at the box office, behind those three. Its decline is in line with Jurassic World and The Avengers, which fell 49% and 50% respectively in their second weekends (The Force Awakens was off just 40%). That suggests a final domestic total for Beauty and the Beast somewhere between $500 million and $550 million.
Disney’s juggernaut will add another $119.2 million internationally this weekend, according to the studio, for a $207.5 million global weekend, and $690.3 million to date. Its international total of $373.3 million is about 20% bigger than its domestic total so far. If that ratio is maintained (and it could yet increase when the film is released in Japan on April 21), and the film does $500 million or so domestically, that suggests a global total of around $1.1 billion. It certainly has a shot at being one of the ten highest-grossing films of all time globally, which would require overtaking Iron Man 3’s $1.22 billion.
Power Rangers never harbored that sort of ambition, and a $40.5 million opening is a real achievement for a reboot of what has always been a bit of a niche franchise. The film didn’t get great reviews from critics, with just a 46% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences are liking it (it’s scoring 82% among RT readers), and the result is particularly good news for Lionsgate, which has badly needed a new franchise since The Divergent Series: Allegiant died out the gate this time last year. With a budget of $120 million, and hefty marketing costs, Power Rangers will need to show good legs domestically and a strong performance internationally to be truly profitable, and unfortunately the international figures don’t look that good, with just $18.7 million reported so far overseas. The domestic debut at least gives the studio something to build on.
The rest of the openers are a mixed bag. Life’s $12.6 million isn’t catastrophic, but the film never looked like something that audiences haven’t seen too many times before. CHiPS, meanwhile, managed just $7.6 million for seventh place.
Just sliding into the top 10, based on reported estimates, is Slamma Jamma, from faith-based producer/distributor Riverrain. The numbers on this one have been conflicting, and that figure is most likely buoyed considerably by church screenings. It seems to be performing weakly in theaters, based on the numbers I’ve seen.
Finally among the new releases playing in a substantial number of theaters, Wilson will debut with around $330,000 from 310 theaters, for a disappointing average just over $1,000.
We’re still waiting on an official announcement, but it looks as though I Called Him Morgan will be the top limited release of the weekend, with something over $10,000 in a single theater.
- Biggest 2nd weekends
- Beauty and the Beast comparison chart
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- Fastest movies to $300 million
- Power Rangers comparison chart
- Life comparison chart
- CHiPs comparison chart
- Kong: Skull Island comparison chart
- Logan comparison chart
- Get Out comparison chart
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, CHiPS, Power Rangers, Beauty and the Beast, Wilson, Life, Slamma Jamma, I Called Him Morgan