FRIDAY JULY 26 Box Office Report

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Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #30 of 2013 looks like a decent $159 million for the top 12 films, comfortably above the same weekend the last few years. The Wolverine is way off our projected opening but still but still the best opening in recent years for a weekend that often is filled with clunkers. (Remember The Watch and Step Up Revolution this time last year? See the complete track for the last weekend in July in the second table below.) 

Opening at 3,924 theaters late Thursday, The Wolverine from 20th Century Fox grossed $21 million Friday and is on track for a $54 million opening weekend (way under the $69.5 million ShowbuzzDaily forecast). We thought our forecast was somewhat conservative as most other estimates were well above $70 million for the weekend, but Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is just not the stuff of mega-commercial appeal. The film is pacing toward a three-day average of $13,800 per theater for the weekend (well above the $5,333 opening weekend average for all wide-release films the last two years, but nothing special for a big effects, summer comic book movie). Critical sentiment is decent overall (68% positive overall at RottenTomatoes), although top critics are less impressed at 61% positive. The Wolverine is headed for $131 million total domestic, well below the $179.9 million for X-Men Origins: Wolverine (released May 1, 2009).

Expanding to 1,064 theaters Friday, Fruitvale Station from Weinstein should average $4,200 per theater for a $4.5 million weekend. The film opened two weeks ago at 7 theaters, averaging $55,184 for a $386K weekend.  Last week, the film inched up to 34 theaters with a still-potent $21,750 theater average for a $739K weekend.

Expanding to 886 theaters Friday, The Way, Way Back from Fox Searchlight is on track for a $3.3 million opening weekend, averaging $3,700 per theater for the weekend.  Also, nothing special.

The real miss this weekend was The To Do List.  CBS Films once again gave it the old college try, and once again whiffed. The comedy starring Aubrey Plaza from NBC’s micro-rated comedy Parks and Recreation, is on track for $1.8 million in its opening weekend (a weak $3,050 average at 591 theaters).

The box office is being supported by some solid holdovers. For example, The Conjuring is on pace for a 43% decline in its second weekend, down to $24.0 million (hitting our forecast).  We have upgraded the domestic final gross outlook to $148 million.

Note: The table above summarizes an early look at the weekend. The first column is a reminder of each film’s ShowBuzzDaily Forecast for the weekend (in brackets). The second column, on which the films are sorted, displays the new weekend projection for each film, based on the Friday numbers (the third column). The final column is a preliminary estimate of the ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Total number for the film’s total run in North America. A “++” indicates the Domestic number has been upgraded; a “–” indicates a downgrade.

In case you missed them, click to see this week’s Weekend Predictions.