Weekend Wrap-Up: Box Office is Cut to Pieces, Earning Just $75 million
October 31, 2017
It was a terrible weekend at the box office with only two films cracking $10 million, Jigsaw and Tyler Perry’s Boo 2: A Madea Halloween. Geostorm earned third place with just $5.90 million. Overall, the box office fell 21% from last weekend to just $75 million. More importantly, this is 15% lower than the same weekend last year. Year-to-date, 2017 continues to struggle with a running tally of $8.57 billion. This is $470 million or $5.2% below last year’s pace, meaning we fell behind last year’s pace by a further 0.2 percentage points. The box office really needed to be eating into the deficit during the month of October, but that hasn’t been the case.
Jigsaw opened with $16.64 million, which is more than our original prediction, but much lower than the previews would indicate. This suggests fans of the franchise were excited to see the movie, but general horror fans were not. Its reviews are just 43% positive, while it managed a B from CinemaScore, so the film will likely not stick around long after Halloween.
Tyler Perry’s Boo 2: A Madea Halloween was next with $10.05 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $35.57 million. It will top $50 million before too long, which will be more than enough to cover its entire production budget and a sizable slice of the advertising budget. This is weaker than the original Boo! managed and below average for the Madea franchise, but still good enough to be judged a financial success.
Geostorm was well back in third place with $5.90 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $23.78 million. The film’s theater average is just $1,819, meaning the film will lose a lot of theaters when Thor: Ragnarok opens on Friday.
Happy Death Day was next with $5.08 million over the weekend for a running tally of $48.37 million after three weeks of release. There is a slim chance the film will remain in the top five next weekend, but even if it doesn’t, it is still a financial success.
Blade Runner 2049 remained the biggest box office hit of the month with $4.12 million over the weekend for a four-week total of $81.54 million. It will finish with approximately $90 million domestically, but it needs more than twice that much internationally to have any chance of breaking even anytime soon.
Thank You for Your Service just missed the top five with $3.82 million. It missed the Mendoza Line over the weekend, meaning many theater owners will be looking to drop it as soon as they are contractually able to. This is too bad, as the film earned 78% positive reviews and an A minus from CinemaScore. The film deserved better than this.
Suburbicon, on the other hand, struggled and deservedly so. It only earned ninth place with $2.84 million, putting its average well below the Mendoza Line. Furthermore, the film only managed a Tomatometer Score of 26% positive and a shockingly bad D minus from CinemaScore. It will disappear from theaters before the end of next month.
Only the Brave was the best of the rest of the Sophomore class, with $3.50 million over the weekend for a total of $11.99 million after two. It fell 42%, which is a lot better than most films manage, but it started at such a low level that this won’t matter. Same Kind of Different as Me had the worst opening of the three, while it fell to 17th place during its sophomore stint with just $1.25 million. Its running tally is just $4.78 million, which would have been a merely mediocre opening weekend. Finally we get to The Snowman, which was right behind in 18th place with $1.21 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $5.80 million. Its theater average is just $668, so I will be shocked if it keeps half of those theaters by Friday.
- Jigsaw Comparisons
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- Suburbicon Comparisons
- Thank You for Your Service Comparisons
Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Suburbicon, Geostorm, Thor: Ragnarok, Blade Runner 2049, Same Kind of Different as Me, The Snowman, Only the Brave, Jigsaw, Thank You for Your Service, Happy Death Day, Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, Saw, Madea