This weekend’s box office will be about how well Kong: Skull Island will open but, perhaps more importantly, how well Logan will hold up in weekend two and Get Out for its third outing.
Kong arrives in a lucrative spring break marketplace that will see 19% of all colleges off and 8% K-12 on Friday. Those ComScore figures will increase to 38% and 19%, respectively, by Monday. The film carries a $185 million production budget so the stateside grosses and international grosses will need to be strong and it’s no secret that the film is against competition from last week’s Logan and the onslaught of potential blockbusters that are waiting in the wings (Beauty and the Beast, Power Rangers).
On its side is, as of this writing, the film holds an impressive 82% on Rotten Tomatoes and early screenings have been relatively positive. Tracking has this at $40 million for the weekend but tracking has been wrong lately and I think it can pull out ahead with about $50 million for the weekend.
That being said, it will be a close race for the top spot because Logan has seen strong weekday business and word of mouth has been very good. It has about $104 million in grosses as of this writing and its momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down. If Kong comes in on the low end of tracking, then Logan could remain number one but as of now I’m seeing a $48-49 million gross but wouldn’t be surprised if it went higher to beat out Kong.
Even more exciting at the box office is the impressive performance of Get Out which is also seeing strong weekday numbers in its third week of release. The film fell a slight 15.4% in weekend two and word of mouth is still strong with many going for repeat viewings. I think the film will see another gross in the $20 million range with about $21 million for the weekend.
Check back Monday for the final results!
