Tyler Perry is putting the Madea character to rest in A Madea Family Funeral and even though it may perform adequately, it will likely not be enough to prevent How To Train Your Dragon 3 from ruling the box office once again.
That’s not to say that the Madea franchise has been a slouch at the box office. Beginning with 2005’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, movies featuring the character have at least opened well, despite quick dropoffs in the following weeks. The films are made on the cheap so Madea has been a lucrative brand for Tyler Perry and Lionsgate. To date, films featuring the Madea character have made $482.3 million at the domestic box office with a total budget for all ten films coming to about $142 million. Needless to say, Madea is a profitable entity and one Lionsgate is probably sad to lose since this is said to be the last collaboration between Lionsgate and Tyler Perry.
The highest opening for a Madea film was Madea Goes Goes To Jail with $41 million and it’s also the highest grossing one overall with $90.5 million at the domestic box office. That was ten years ago when the character was at the height of her popularity so, even though this is the final installment, I doubt Funeral will reach those heights. The lowest opening is A Madea Christmas with $16 million and that’s a total that Funeral should be able to top. There are no reviews as of yet which has always been the case since they are never screened for critics in advance. Even when the mostly negative reviews emerge, the brand is pretty critic-proof so nothing that they will say will make the target audience avoid it. I’m predicting about $22 million for A Madea Funeral and then we can finally lay the character to rest for good.
Also opening this weekend is Greta which is opening in a suprisingly robust number of theaters (2,000) this weekend considering it looks more like an indie arthouse drama that would hope to gain steam with a smaller rollout. Greta is a thriller from Neil Jordan who is best known for directing The Crying Game and Interview with the Vampire. The film is headlined by Elle star Isabelle Huppert and Chloe Grace Moretz with a supporting cast including Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, and Stephen Rea made a bit of splash when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last fall to positive notices. The film’s Rotten Tomatoes score had been fresh until today (it slipped to 57% as of this writing) but even the not so great reviews indicate the film is a bit bat shit crazy and intriguing. The TV spots are pretty decent but I think they took too long to build interest and now it’s going to get lost in a sea of other films before it quickly disappears. I’m calling about $6 million for the weekend.
That leaves How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World to rule the box office once again and since it opened above expectations last weekend, I think it should see a pretty healthy sophomore frame. I’m calling about $32-35 million for its second weekend and an easy number one finish.
