Even bigger than Gaston after five dozen eggs, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (Disney) is coming in at the highest level of projections, and may be poised for the largest pre-May weekend in history. Preliminary numbers at Deadline have opening day at $65.3M (including $16.3M from Thursday night), and while that’s below the $81.6M first day for Batman vs Superman (and the $67.3M for The Hunger Games), Beauty is expected to perform much better at Saturday matinees than their respective 38%/25% drops. The weekend should be $160M+, with the “+” very much in play, and it could very well top BvS‘s $166M record. We won’t know until overseas results come in whether Beauty is likely to hit the magic $1B total worldwide, but it’s certainly a possibility, and at that level, the roughly $300M in production/marketing costs are a very good investment.
The presence of Beauty dented KONG: SKULL ISLAND (Legendary/Tencent/Warners), which dropped 63% from last Friday to $7.4M. That’s still better than the 77% Friday-to-Friday drop that Godzilla had, and should mean a $26M weekend, putting it on track for $160M in the US. That’s only an OK number given Kong‘s high costs, and the big question will be how much Kong can build on last week’s $85.1M overseas opening, with China and Japan arrivals still a week away.
LOGAN (20th) fell 54% on its 3rd Friday to $4.7M, which should give it a $16M weekend as it heads to $220M or so in the US. That would make it the #4 title in the X-Men franchise (it would fall to #5 if it can’t hit $215M), and given its moderate cost, probably the 2d most profitable after Deadpool.
GET OUT (Blumhouse/QC/Universal) continues to show remarkable resiliency, down a mere 37% on its 4th Friday to $3.7M. With a $13M weekend, it should easily top $150M before its US run is done, making it incredibly profitable.
THE SHACK (Lionsgate) continues to draw its target audience, down 40% from last Friday to $1.6M. It’s heading for a $6M weekend and a $55M US total, a bit below Miracles From Heaven‘s $61.7M.
THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE (Warners Animation) was amazingly untouched by Beauty & The Beast, down just 27% from last Friday to $1.2M. It’s on track for $175M in the US, but its $116.3M overseas total needs to improve.
The weekend’s only quasi-competitor to Beauty is the R-rated horror flick THE BELKO EXPERIMENT (Orion/BH/Universal), which was released under Blumhouse’s even-lower-budget model that combines a tiny production budget with minimal marketing. It earned $1.6M at 1341 theatres, and might get to $4M for the weekend.
The most notable limited release of the weekend was T2: TRAINSPOTTING (TriStar/Sony), which might have a fair $30K per-theatre average at 5 for the weekend. Terrence Malick’s SONG TO SONG (Broad Green) is somewhat lower, with a likely $10K weekend average at 4. PERSONAL SHOPPER (IFC) doubled its run to 22 theatres, and may average a soft $4K.
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