Last week I wouldn’t have guessed I’d be saying that The Boss Baby would be number one and I definitely didn’t think I’d be saying it would hold that spot again in weekend two but that’s what’s going to happen as we head into this weekend’s box office.
There aren’t enough newcomers to really make a dent in the box office so The Boss Baby should have no problem taking the top spot again. It faces competition for the kids’ attention with Smurfs: The Lost Village opening but that franchise is dying out and isn’t strong enough to be much of a threat. I expect The Boss Baby to drop by half this weekend with about $25 million but I also thought it wouldn’t open as high as it did last weekend so don’t be surprised if it holds a bit better.
Beauty and the Beast should continue its run toward the $1 billion mark worldwide as it adds another $20 million to its domestic gross. At this point the film is making all profit and isn’t really slowing down so right now it’s about watchin how high the film will go in the end.
That brings us to our first newcomer, Smurfs: The Lost Village which should take the third spot. The film shaping up to be the strongest performer among the newcomers with a debut of between $15 million to $16 million. The family film is an attempt by Sony to reinvigorate a franchise that deflated after starting strong with 2011’s The Smurfs ($563.7 million globally) but veered off track with 2013’s The Smurfs 2, which made $347.5 million worldwide on a $105 million budget. The previous films were live-action and animation hybrids, an approach that the studio has scrapped. The Lost Village is entirely CGI, resulting in substantial cost savings. The latest film has a $60 million budget and if it continues the streak of doing about 70% of its business overseas, the end result could be just fine for Sony.
Our other newcomer is Going in Style, a remake of the 1979 heist comedy about a gang of geriatrics who turn to bank robbery to enliven their retirements. The first film had George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg playing the unlikely felons, this version offers up Morgan Freeman, Alan Arkin, and Michael Caine as graying crooks. Zach Braff, of Scrubs fame, is a director on this which is quite surprising. The film cost $25 million to make and while that is on the low end, I don’t think it will see that domestically. I predict an opening in the $8 million range before it slowly fades away.
Check back on Monday for the final box office results
