Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Audiences just changed their romantic status to “It’s complicated”.
The feared drop in the box office in the film’s second week occurred as many detractors expected and many fans dreaded. Typically for a major event film, the goal is to only drop 44% to 55% in the second weekend. It’s usually a healthy sign for a movie, especially one without a tremendous amount of competition. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice dropped a horrible 68.4% this weekend to the tune of $52,385,000, a number that would have been impressive in most situations but not for Zack Snyder’s monolith.
When the film opened strong in its first week it went a long way towards silencing many of the louder critics. Payback has come in the form of the most indifferent fifty million dollars possible if that much money could ever be considered indifferent. There’s a very good chance that this movie that needed to make a billion dollars to be considered a success will not make a billion dollars. The film stands at $682,857,793, which is an astonishing amount of money but a number that loses lustre when you factor in the exorbitant costs to create, promote, and release a movie of this size.
Zootopia continued to be a peppy little box office juggernaut, collecting twenty million dollars in what has become a series of routine visits to the ATM for the excellent animated flick. It would not at all be surprising to see this film end up with a domestic total within ten or twenty million dollars of the much more expensive and hyped superhero epic when the smoke clears.
A few tidbits from the numbers:
- The Witch has made twenty-five million dollars. That’s not a pittance, especially considering the tone and setting for the film. I may have been presumptuous when I thought it was a bit of a fiscal disappointment.
- Deadpool has pulled in almost seven times its budget. We all could hope for that kind of ROI.
- God is Not Dead 2 pulled in a surprising eight million bucks this weekend, showing that you can sequelize anything.
The Numbers Game
I’ve added a little fun to the box office report. A little guessing game. Let’s see how close we can get to guessing the correct box-office numbers for the movies opening next week.
Last Week:
Everybody Wants Some
My Guess: $8,500,000
Actual: $371,457
Result: OK, I am adding theater counts for all releases I spotlight now, because I was expecting this to open on 1,000 screens or more. It opened on 19 screens this weekend. It had the third highest per-screen average, which if you extrapolate over 1,000 screens is great.
I didn’t do my homework. Shame on me.
Miles Ahead
My Guess: $4,500,000
Actual: $122,751
Result: The situation is the same as above, except Miles Ahead opened on only four screens. And with the highest average per screen. So, I’ll be right but just a week or so later.
This week:
The Boss
The latest Melissa McCarthy comedy opens on 3,200+ screens, so one should expect a nice return from audiences looking to laugh after a couple of weeks of Superman and Batman being grumpy. Her previous starring vehicles range from 24-40 million bucks pulled in on their first weekend, which just showcases how big of a draw she is, so the expectation for this should be high. In fact, it may be the number one film of the weekend. If that were to happen there will be Warner Bros. employees updating their LinkedIN.
My guess: $31,000,000
Hardcore Henry
This film is opening on 3,000 screens, which is impressive for a movie so specific and visceral. It’s also the kind of movie we love here at Fandom, and the creator of the film has already become a favorite to many. Unfortunately that probably won’t help the movie.
My guess: $8,500,000
See you next week!
Source: Box Office Mojo