Weekend Studio Estimates DECEMBER 6-8

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Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #49 of 2013 still looks like $87 million for the top 12 films from Friday-Sunday, right on target for the usually slow post-Thanksgiving weekend.  

Opening at 2,101 theaters Friday, Out of the Furnace from Relativity grossed $1.9 million Friday and $2.1 million Saturday, now on track for a $5.3 million opening weekend (below the already bearish $6.5 million ShowbuzzDaily forecast). The film is pacing toward a weak three-day average of $2,500 per theater for the weekend (half the $5,333 opening weekend average for all wide-release films the last two years). Critical sentiment is mixed (52% positive overall at RottenTomatoes and 59% positive with top critics). Out of the Furnace is headed for maybe $15 million total domestic.

Frozen 3D and Hunger Games: Catching Fire are the only films generating significant business this weekend.  Frozen‘s total domestic gross has been adjusted to $215 million, and more detail on the track for Catching Fire can be found below.

Inside Llewyn Davis from CBS Films and the Coen Brothers opened incredibly well with a great $100,500 per theater opening weekend average at 4 theaters.  Playing at the same number of theaters, the second weekend of Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom from The Weinstein Company averaged a still very solid $19,400 per theater, an excellent hold from the opening weekend average of $21,071 (making this film one of the greatest examples of almost perfect release timing).

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.

Catching Fire Durability

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has fallen back to a more normal pace when compared to other hit films in the last three years (those that started with over $100 million through the first weekend).  Through this coming Sunday, Catching Fire looks like it will total $41 million over the past week (a very typical number compared to other 12 recent hit films) and that $41 million is down -74% from the opening first few days (again, a very average number number for these films).  The total domestic for Hunger Games has been downgraded to $420 million, still on track to be #1 for 2013.