Logan looks to get the summer movie season started a bit early this year with what should be a pretty impressive opening but exactly how high the film will go is the real head scratcher.
Working in its favor is that it is the only major wide release this weekend. It’s competing with the second weekend of Get Out (which should also see a solid second weekend) but the film pretty much has the weekend to itself. Also helping matters is that early buzz and reviews have been very good. As of this writing it sits at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes with many critics hailing this as Hugh Jackman’s best turn as Wolverine yet.
The big difference for Logan from previous entries is this: The Wolverine threequel is rated R, the first time ever for the franchise. Ratcheting up a sequel’s rating from a PG-13 rating to an R, is quite uncommon, particularly after the series has established itself with a general audience (that said, there have been various franchises in the past that have tamed their ratings in an effort to grab a greater audience, i.e. 2005’s Fantastic Four moving from a PG-13 to a PG with 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer; also 1984’s Police Academy going from an R to a PG-13 with its 1985 sequel). However the R-rating is a risk well worth taking. As Fox proved with Deadpool, fanboys want more bloodshed in their superhero movies; previous ones include The Watchmen. Kick-Ass, Blade, 300 and The Punisher.
More good news for the film is that Fandango is reporting that that advance ticket sales for the Hugh Jackman threequel are ahead of all X-Men movies at this point in their sales cycle — that’s not counting Deadpool. So it appears interest is pretty high, especially with it being his reported last turn as the character.
What many trackers are counting on is for Logan to post the second-best opening in the Wolverine series after 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine ($85M). Director James Mangold returns as director after helming 2013’s part two The Wolverine. The two Wolverine movies have made $787.8M, and Logan should take the spinoff trilogy past the $1 billion mark during its global run.
I don’t see this grossing triple digits in its opening weekend but it will still do very well and will out gross the previous installment which topped out at north of $132 million. I see an opening in the $70-75 million range.
And where will Get Out fall in week two? Word of mouth has been very good and mid-week sales are solid as well. I’m expecting a gross in the $20-25 million range for week two.
Check back Monday for the final box office results
