Weekend Predictions: Will Audience Answer the Call?
February 20, 2020
It’s a post-holiday weekend, so we are not expecting much at the box office. The Call of the Wild is earning good reviews, but not great reviews, while its buzz is far too quiet for its massive production budget. On the other hand, Brahms: The Boy II is a low-budget horror movie earning terrible reviews and frankly I’m sick of talking about these movies. Seriously. We are less than two months into the year and we’ve already at least four other low-budget horror movies to come out. I don’t want to hear anyone complain about too many super hero movies ever again. … Moving on. Neither of these two films are expected to challenge Sonic the Hedgehog for top spot on the box office chart. In fact, I’m not convinced Brahms will open in the top five. This weekend last year, the final installment of the How to Train Your Dragon opened with just over $55 million. There’s no way the box office will match that this year and 2020 is going to lose in the year-over-year competition unless the holdovers hold on a lot better than anticipated.
Sonic the Hedgehog opened with $58 million during the three-day weekend and that was a very pleasant surprise. Additionally, it earned good reviews and an A-rating from CinemaScore, so the film’s legs should be solid as well. That said, it is a post-holiday weekend, so a 50% drop-off isn’t unlikely. I think it will avoid this fate, barely, earning $30 million over the weekend. This is still more than enough to cruise past $100 million domestically and put it on pace to earn a solid profit for Paramount.
The Call of the Wild is the latest film made by Fox, but released by Disney through the 20th Century Studios label. The film’s reviews are good, but its production budget is a lot more than initially reported at at least $125 million. The film would need to open in first place with over $30 million to have any real chance of breaking even any time soon. It isn’t going to get there. Expectations range from $12 million to $20 million and sadly the lower end seems more likely. On the other hand, this could become a movie that fans will stream over and over again when it hits Disney Plus.
Birds of Prey is struggling, but could still break even, eventually. Topping its production budget domestically is the first step to getting there and while it won’t get to $82 million this weekend, earning $9 million over the weekend will get it to $75 million, more or less, putting it about a week away from that goal.
Bad Boys for Life is closing in on $200 million domestically, but it won’t get there until after it is knocked out of the top five. Look for $6 million this weekend for a running tally of over $190 million.
Brahms: The Boy II should earn a spot in the top five, barely. Its reviews are not going to help its box office chances, while there has been way too much direct competition released so far this year. Furthermore, the film is opening in barely more than 2,000 theaters and there’s a real chance it will open below the Mendoza Line. Even high end expectations has it failing to earn more than $10 million during its opening weekend and I fear it will barely top half that figure with $5 million. Anything less than that and 1917 will remain in the top five one more weekend.
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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Bad Boys For Life, The Call of the Wild, Sonic The Hedgehog, 1917, Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), Brahms: The Boy II, How to Train Your Dragon