Theater Counts: Circle Plays in 3,163 Locations; Guardians Coming to 4,200 Theaters Next Week

April 27, 2017

April comes to end with two wide releases that have modest ambitions at the box office. The Circle opens in 3,163 theaters for STX Entertainment, who will be happy if it beats The Bye Bye Man’s $13.5 million opening weekend and becomes their second-best opening to date (Bad Moms holds the record for the studio, with $23.8 million—a number they would be thrilled with). Speaking of records, The Circle holds a very unusual one…

It’s the movie with the highest-grossing top-billed lead actors of all time. Tom Hanks has long held the record as the top-grossing lead actor, with a global tally of $9.3 billion to date. Emma Watson is challenging him hard, with $8.9 billion so far, helped enormously, of course, by her lead role in the Harry Potter franchise, plus a billion dollars or so from Beauty and the Beast. Together, they bring over $18 billion of lead-role box office to the first film they’ve appeared in together, which is a record for the box office clout brought by two lead actors to a movie. (By the way, the next Avengers will put together about $30 billion in lead-actor-grosses, spread across the five or six leads.) See our complete list of the top-grossing actors and actresses in lead roles here.

The Circle will demonstrate the limited value of total historical grosses in predicting box office results, because it’s not headed to break any all-time box office records. Our Bankability Index, which does a much better job of predicting outcomes at the box office, suggests the film will gross around $58 million domestically, based on its full cast and crew. That would be a great result, but does give an idea of the pedigree of the team behind the movie.

The second film opening wide this weekend is How to Be a Latin Lover. The star, Eugenio Derbez, was the lead in the previous breakout hit Instructions Not Included / No se Aceptan Devoluciones, and that opened with $7.5 million in just 348 theaters. Latin Lover debuts in 1,118, which gives it a shot at $10 million this weekend, although we’re playing it safe, and predicting about half that.

Among films for which we have a theater count, one other is opening nationwide: Sleight will play in 565 locations.

Next weekend, all eyes will be on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, which Disney estimates will open in a predictably-gargantuan 4,200 theaters.

Bruce Nash

Filed under: Theater Counts, Harry Potter, Tom Hanks, Eugenio Derbez, Emma Watson