Weekend Estimates: Beauty and the Beast Sets New March Record
March 19, 2017
Beauty and the Beast set out this weekend to show that it’s not just super heroes who can deliver big openings at the box office, and it’s doing so in some style. Disney is projecting a $170 million opening weekend for the live action fairytale, and the film is setting records around the world. At home, it’ll have the biggest March weekend of all time, and the fourth-best Saturday of all time. The studio is projecting it will have the sixth-best Sunday in history, although my money would be on it slightly outperforming today, for the fifth-best Sunday, and that it will challenge Iron Man 3’s $174 million for the sixth-best opening of all time. Only Star Wars, super heroes, and dinosaur-themed movies have done better on opening weekend.
Oh, and there’s also a good chance we’ll set a new Emma Watson opening weekend record. That currently stands at $169.2 million, and was set by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. Beauty and the Beast is a significant step for the actress, who has probably done the best job among the three leads of moving beyond the Harry Potter franchise. It will move almost certainly move her up to number two on the list of the leading stars at the global box office, behind Tom Hanks. That performance is helped enormously by the Potter franchise, but she’s also appeared in films as diverse as The Tale of Despereaux, This is the End, and Noah. The film will likewise ease the weight of Dan Stevens’ Downton Abbey baggage.
Beauty and the Beast also sets a new record for a PG release, beating Finding Dory’s $135 million debut last year. Other records that Disney reported this morning include the biggest March opening of all time in UK, Germany, and Mexico, and the best opening of 2017 so far in the UK, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Brazil, and Mexico. The total international cume for the film as of Sunday evening will be $180 million, for $350 million globally. The film has yet to open in France, Australia, and Japan, so those figures will grow steeply. Even without them, it will have the second-highest March opening weekend internationally, behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
The major territories for the film so far are China, with $44.8 million; the United Kingdom, $22.8m; South Korea, $11.9m; Mexico, $11.6m; Germany, $10.7m; Brazil, $10.4m; Italy, $7.6m; Russia, $6.0m; Philippines $5.9m; Spain $5.9m; Hong Kong, $3.2m; and Indonesia, $3.2m.
The audience demographics split 40% male and 60% female; 39% adults, 50% families, and 10% teens; 22% 12 & under, 30% 13–25; 39% 26–49; and 10% 50 and older.
There are a few nuggets of non-Belle related news to share this weekend. The Belko Experiment will launch with around $4 million, for a respectable theater average of almost $3,000. It’s well down the chart in 7th place, and will be looking to the home market for a substantial slice of its revenue. In limited release, T2: Trainspotting starts out with the best theater average for a limited release so far this year (although, notable, its average is a bit behind the wide release of Beauty and the Beast this weekend). It is projected to earn $180,000 in five locations. Song to Song and Frantz have also started out well this weekend, with a projected $53,945 from four theaters, and $18,500 from two theaters, respectively.
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Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Song to Song, Beauty and the Beast, T2: Trainspotting, The Belko Experiment, Frantz, Harry Potter, Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, Dan Stevens