Friday Estimates: Aladdin Has a Memorable Start with $31 Million
May 25, 2019
Aladdin is looking stellar after a $31.0 million opening Friday. The film’s reviews are nothing special, but it scored an A from CinemaScore, so clearly audiences are loving the movie much more than critics did. The word-of-mouth should help its legs and this puts it on pace to top $100 million over the four-day weekend and even top last year’s top film, Solo: A Star Wars Story, with about $107 million. This is much better than most predictions and a return to form for live-action Disney remakes after Dumbo’s disappointing run earlier in the year. It could even help 2019 top 2018 in the year-over-year comparison, but that depends on the rest of the new releases and holdovers also matching or exceeding expectations. That doesn’t look as promising.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum fell 71% from its opening Friday, landing at $6.6 million for the day and $83.2 million after eight days of release. While a 71% decline seems extreme, it is actually a little better than expected and the film should top our $27 million prediction. The film could even reach $30 million over the four-day weekend. It will certainly top $100 million before then.
Avengers: Endgame earned $4.23 million on Friday, putting it on pace for $22 million over the four-day weekend. This should be enough to lift its running tally past $800 million by the end of business on Sunday.
Pokémon: Detective Pikachu pulled in $3.5 million on Friday, putting it on pace for $17 million during the four-day weekend. This is a little below our prediction, but with Aladdin doing so well, it isn’t unexpected, as the two films shared their target audience more than any other pairing in the top five.
Brightburn earned $3.03 million during its opening day and Sony is projecting a $10 million opening four-day weekend. The reviews are merely good, while there’s no CinemaScore to report so far, so it is hard to tell if audiences liked it more or less than critics did.
Booksmart opened with $2.5 million on Friday, meaning it will only earn about $8 million over the four-day weekend. This is really disappointing for a movie with 97% positive reviews. That said, it only earned a B plus from CinemaScore, which is mediocre for a comedy, so clearly audiences were not as enamored with the movie as critics. The film is a deconstruction of teenage sex comedies and critics tend to award films that try to do something different. After all, when you watch two or more films a week, novelty becomes something you appreciate more and more. However, CinemaScore ratings tend to judge not only the overall quality of the movie, but how well it matched expectations, and it might not matter how good the movie was if you were hoping for something else.
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Filed under: Friday Estimates, Avengers: Endgame, Dumbo, Aladdin, John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, Booksmart, BrightBurn