The fact that Alien Covenant came out of the gate really strong with its Thursday night preview but ended up with only 36M over the weekend should be concerning for all future sequels this summer. Yes, Alien Covenant opened in 1st place. Yes, 36M isn’t that bad, nor is it that far off of its projected 40M opening. But it continues a trend that started with Guardians, where films are slightly underperforming below their projections. No film has really exploded past industry projections, instead, they all open near projections, but just under them. Does that mean people are tired of going to the theatres across the board? Or, is early tracking failing us? Honestly, with a 36M opening, I’m not even fully convinced anymore that Alien Covenant can break 100M. It managed a B cinemascore, which was the same score given to Prometheus, but a B cinemascore doesn’t always equate to a 3x multiplier. It might just squeak past the 100M mark. We’ll just have to see. I was hearing 40M for Alien, and my gut told me Alien would do a little bit better, so I projected 44M. It let me down, with 36M.
Coming in second, with a better weekend than I projected, is Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2. This ALMOST managed to actually defeat Alien. Guardians came in with 35.1M, right below Alien Covenant. Can you imagine if it had just made a little more, and the new headline was how Alien Covenant failed to even open at #1 against the third weekend of Guardians? Damn. I had projected Guardians at 30M, but it ended up not dropping over 50% again, and slowing its drop to just 46%. Pretty impressive. It also managed to join the 300M club this week.
Third place went to the teen drama Everything Everything which managed to outperform my projection of 10M, and grab 12M instead. An A- cinemascore suggests this film might have some legs, and pull out a little beyond a 3x multiplier. It should finish with around 40M.
Fourth place went to Snatched, which dropped 61% to 7.6M. Wow. 61%? That’s awful. Comedies usually hold up really well week-to-week. Snatched is not generating the kind of buzz it needs. Earlier when I did my summer box office preview, I said I was hoping Snatched wasn’t another Tammy, and it is very much another Tammy. This film has no shot at crossing 100M. With 32.7M in the bank so far, it would be lucky to finish with 50M at this rate.
The fourth Diary Of A Wimpy Kid film finished in 5th place, after getting a beat down from fans, who were not happy with the recasting. The first three entries in the series all received A- cinemascores, while the fourth got a B. I don’t expect much from the legs on this, except it is the newest kids film in the marketplace, and we don’t get another one until Captain Underpants (unless you count Pirates, which I think it a bit much for little ones). It might have better legs than it deserves, simply because it is unchecked for two weeks.
King Arthur managed to have a better hold than Snatched, dropping just 55%, which is honestly not bad given all the shit thrown at this film.
Baywatch opens officially on Thursday, and Pirates opens on Friday, so we’ll get to see then what happens with those films. Baywatch is tracking at 50M over the Thurs-Monday span, with Pirates tracking at 100M over the Friday-Monday span.
1) Alien Covenant- 36M Weekend, 36M Total
2) Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2- 35.1M Weekend, 301.7M Total.
3) Everything Everything- 12M Weekend, 12M Total
4) Snatched- 7.6M Weekend, 32.7M Total
5) Diary Of A Wimpy Kid 4- 7.2M Weekend, 7.2M Total
6) King Arthur- 6.8M Weekend, 27.2M Total
7) The Fate Of The Furious- 3.1M Weekend, 219.9M Total
8) The Boss Baby- 2.8M Weekend, 166.1M Total
9) Beauty and the Beast- 2.4M Weekend, 497.7M Total
10) How To Be A Latin Lover- 2.2M Weekend, 29.4M Total
