Weekend Predictions: Can the Rangers Power Their Way to the Top?

March 23, 2017

Power Rangers

There are three wide releases this week, but none of them have a shot at topping Beauty and the Beast at the box office. In fact, all three films combined won’t make as much as Beauty and the Beast does this weekend. Of the three wide releases, Power Rangers has the best chance of box office success and it does have a shot at $100 million domestically. Life could become a midlevel hit and since it likely cost a lot less to make, it could be a bigger financial success. Finally there’s CHiPs, which has gained no traction with audiences. It will likely miss the top five. This weekend last year, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opened with a then March record of $166.01 million. Nothing playing this weekend will match that. Beauty and the Beast might not make half that. Fortunately, 2017 has a $100 million lead on 2016, so one bad weekend in the year-over-year comparison won’t do too much damage.

Beauty and the Beast is a family film and it earned an A from CinemaScore and both of those factors suggest long legs. However, it broke records during its opening weekend and it is rare for films that open with this much to have long legs. Too much of the target audience has already seen the movie and will be looking to see something else. A 50% or greater drop-off seems likely, it might even drop a little more than 55%. I think that’s a little to pessimistic and I’m going with $84 million over the weekend, pushing it past $300 million by Sunday.

Power Rangers is a $120 million adaptation of the TV show of the same name from the 1990s. This is a strange film, as its target audience doesn’t need a new adaptation, because the show never went away. The latest incarnation of the show, Ninja Steel is on TV right now. If they wanted to target adults who watched the show as a kid, then turning it dark and gritty is not the way to go. Furthermore, the reviews are mixed with a Tomatometer Score of 48% positive. Assuming that doesn’t really change much by the time the weekend starts in earnest, then it has a shot at $40 million during the weekend and just over $100 million domestically. I don’t think it will quite get there, but $37 million isn’t a bad opening. If it find an audience internationally, it could break even and justify further installments in the franchise.

Life is the best-reviewed new release of the week earning a Tomatometer Score of 84% positive at the moment. It does have some star power, but it is only opening in approximately 2,500 theaters, which is a lot lower than the 3,700 theaters Power Rangers is playing in. The buzz is somewhere in-between its reviews and its theater count. On the high end, it could open with $25 million and finish with nearly $70 million. On the low end, it could struggle to get to $50 million domestically. I’m going to go with a $20 million opening and close to $60 million in total.

Up next is Kong: Skull Island, which should earn about $14 million over the weekend for a three-week total of over $130 million. Getting to $150 million domestically will be trivial, which should be enough to break even eventually.

Logan will round out the top five with $9 million over the weekend. If it can top this figure by even a little bit, it will get to $200 million on Sunday. If not, it will have to wait an extra day to get to that milestone.

The final wide release of the week is CHiPs, an adaptation of the 1970s TV show. Like Starsky and Hutch, this movie is a comedy and not a police drama. This can work, but it can also turn off fans of the original show while not bringing in any new audience members. I really wish I could tell if the transition from TV to big screen was a smooth one, but there are no reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. The fact that there are no reviews this close to its release is a really bad sign. Maybe it will grab a spot in the top five with $10 million, but I think $8 million is more likely.

- Power Rangers Comparisons
- Life Comparisons
- CHiPs Comparisons

Filed under: Weekend Preview, CHiPS, Logan, Kong: Skull Island, Power Rangers, Beauty and the Beast, Life