Valentine’s Day falls on Friday and the Presidents’ Day holiday gives the box office an extra day to boost earnings of our four new wide releases this weekend, Sonic The Hedgehog is likely to race to the top spot.
Sonic The Hedgehog is very lucky to have this renewed good fortune as it heads into its opening weekend. When the first trailer for the film was released to a barrage of criticism over the character’s design last year, the film’s release was delayed last year to its current release date to make changes to the look of the character. All signs pointed to the film being a disaster but Paramount was able to turn the situation around.
A new trailer was released once the redesign was finished and the fan reaction was a complete 180 from the original response and suddenly the film was back on track with fans responding positively to the changes. The news got even better this week when early screenings of the film were resoundingly positive, suggesting that the project should please its target audience and fans of the game alike.
Sonic is currently 61% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing which is a much better start than I expected and the real question is whether the film, which follows the world’s fastest hedgehog (voiced by Ben Schwartz), who teams up with his new best friend Tom (James Marsden) to defend the planet from the evil Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey), can reach an audience beyond fans of the game. I didn’t know that Sonic was still relevant enough to warrant a film adaptation but I’m also 35 years old and a little out of touch when it comes to video games so who am I to say? From the looks of it, this looks like a project that will pull in kids, even if they aren’t fans of the game, because it’s flashy, vibrant & looks like a fun time. The film carries a reported $87 million budget and it should be in good shape with a healthy start at the box office this weekend. I’m predicting a $45 million holiday weekend start for our boy Sonic.
Our next new wide release is Fantasy Island, from horror powerhouse Blumhouse Productions. The film, based on the TV series starring Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize, features Michael Pena as Mr. Roarke, the owner of a remote tropical resort who makes the secret dreams of his guests come true — at a cost. The interesting angle here is that the Fantasy Island TV show was not horror related whatsoever so I appreciate the twist here so the film doesn’t seem like another pointless reboot. At least there was an attempt to do something different. Blumhouse stumbled with their Black Christmas reboot back in December but the marketing for Fantasy Island has been much more aggressive as the film pushes to lure in the the PG-13 demo who will be distracted from school over the holiday weekend. Horror films also play very well on Valentine’s Day so I think Friday business will be particularly strong before it all evens out. The film cost $7 million to make so there is a chance Blumhouse sees a profit from the film as it heads into business on Saturday. I’m predicting an opening of $15-20 million this weekend.
Up next we have the only true romantic film coming out on Valentine’s Day and that’s The Photograph, starring Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield. The film follows the estranged daughter (Issa Rae) of a photographer who falls in love with the journalist (LaKeith Stanfield) assigned to write a profile on her mother. A part of me doesn’t want to second guess The Photograph because Universal Pictures has actually put some effort into the marketing and seems to have faith that the $16 million film will reach its target audience. The film is squarely being targeted to African American women and it’s very possible they will respond this weekend. The romantic drama has a real chance of resonating on Valentine’s Day (Friday) and if word of mouth is good, it may just surprise over the weekend. As of now, I’m predicting an opening of $13-15 million.
The last new release isn’t likely to make much of an impression this weekend. Downhill, a remake of Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure, stars Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a married couple forced to reevaluate their relationship after an avalanche threatens their family ski trip. The film is currently 40% rotten on Rotten Tomatoes and there doesn’t seem to be much interest in the film, especially since marketing has been particularly muted. The one distinction it has is that it’s the first release to come out under the recently rebranded Searchlight Pictures. That’s not enough to compel moviegoers to see this one so I’m predicting an opening of about $3-4 million.
So where does that leave Birds of Prey? My personal hope is that word of mouth will keep this one afloat but a lot of its long term success will be determined by how it performs in weekend two. I think it will pull out ahead of Fantasy Island with a gross of $23-25 million which will give the film a slight boost to to make up for some of the loss last weekend.
