Friday Estimates: Pikachu Overtakes Endgame During Opening Day
May 11, 2019
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu earned first place on Friday with $20.6 million. This is a little weaker than we predicted and this suggests its a little more of a Fanboy film than a Family Film. That said, while this will result in marginally shorter legs, the film will still have a potent opening of about $57 million, thanks in part to Mother’s Day. This is slightly higher than its pre-release tracking, so it is worth celebrating. Additionally, it earned an A minus from CinemaScore, which is better than its reviews and that will further help its chances in the long run. Internationally, the film pulled in $23.1 million on 36,300 screens in 62 markets on Friday for an early total of $43.4 million. By the end of the film’s “opening” weekend, it could have more globally than its $150 million production budget. (We have “opening” in quotation marks, because it did technically debut in Japan last weekend.)
Avengers: Endgame was knocked to second place on Friday with $16.06 million putting it on pace to reach over $60 million over the weekend. This is not as strong as I was anticipating, so we will have to see how long its trailing legs are before we can tell if it will catch The Force Awakens on the all-time domestic box office chart. It is not impossible to do so, just more difficult after this result.
The Hustle was a pleasant surprise at the box office earning $3.96 million on Friday. Its reviews are terrible and it only managed a B minus from CinemaScore, but it should still benefit somewhat from Mother’s Day topping our $11 million prediction by a small margin.
As expected, The Intruder and Long Shot had nearly identical results on Friday earning $1.69 million and $1.65 million respectively. However, Long Shot should have better legs over the rest of the weekend giving it third place with about $7 million.
Poms only managed sixth place on Friday with just $1.5 million, meaning it will very likely miss the Mendoza Line over the weekend with just over $5 million. Its reviews are not helping, nor will its B plus from CinemaScore. That score would be mediocre for a mindless action film and it will be harmful to a movie aimed at a more mature audience.
Tolkien only managed $825,000 and it too is on pace to miss the Mendoza Line earning under $3 million. It’s a prestige film with mixed reviews, so its box office struggles are not too surprising.
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Filed under: Friday Estimates, Avengers: Endgame, Long Shot, The Hustle, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, The Intruder, Poms, Tolkien