Coming in first but with a little lower than most expected is Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them . With the weekends other openers either making very little impact or flopping hard.
Taking the number one spot is Warner Bros Fantastic Beasts with $74,403,487 failing to emulate the huge success of the Harry Potter franchise. However it’s not a disaster and this is still a pretty decent opening for a film based very loosely in the potter universe. With the festive period around the corner and Beasts will be hoping to hold well leading up to Christmas it should wind up around the $230,000,000. Some estimates are leaning towards a $300,000,000 total which we believe to be far too generous, as the opening suggests the Harry Potter fan base just isn’t interested enough to elevate Beasts to that number.
All the way down in 7th with $4,800,000 was the weekend second best opening STX’s The Edge Of Seventeen, opening to roughly half of our highly generous predictions
The R rated teen ‘dramedy’ opened in line with previous genre comparisons such as Youth in Revolt ($6.8m opening) Adventureland ($5.7m opening) and Whip It ($4.6m opening) showing us that post Juno even with stellar reviews the audience just isn’t there for these types of films , at least at a cinematic level. Maybe it will find an audience via VOD?
Down in 8th is the Miles Teller boxing biopic Bleed For This, opening even below our grim prediction
There really isn’t an audience for boxing related films unless they involve Rocky Balboa in some shape or form. With Hands of Stone’s ($4.7m total) and Resurrecting The Champs ($3.7m total) supporting this. There are exceptions of course such as the The Fighter and Southpaw but without major star power even strong reviews aren’t really enough to generate much interest in this genre. I guess boxing fans would rather spend their money on watching actual boxing matches.
The writing really was on the wall for Billy Lynn
Finishing all the way down in 14th and far below even the grimmest of expectations is Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk failing to break even $1,000,000 with 901,062 from a understandably cautious 1176 venues. For this film to make an impact it really needed rave reviews, with only average to negative (43%) and a subject matter that hasn’t proven successful unless very patriotic (American Sniper, Lone Survivor) the writing really was on the wall for Billy Lynn.
As previously mentioned in the weekend predictions Billy Lynn also has a very odd cast of genre hoping actors. With action star Vin diesel, comedy actors Steve Martin and Chris tucker and Twilights Kristen Stewart making up a supporting cast around a unknown lead in Joe Alwyn as Billy Lynn. None of these actors are noted successes outside of their own regular genres and could this mish mash of a cast have put audiences off even further? Expect Billy Lynn to disappear quickly.
The rest of the weekend was made up of lower than expected holds. Doctor Strange is 2nd with $17,000,000 and will likely now fall short of that $250,000,000 total prediction. Trolls falls to 3rd with a 50% drop and $17,000,000 but after last weeks tiny drop FOX shouldn’t be too concerned. Arrival drops 50% to $12,000,000 further enforcing that even with stellar reviews and a strong cast sci-fi is still a hard sell to modern audiences. Hacksaw Ridge comes in at 6 with $6,666,692 for the best weekend drop of the top ten (37%) ,showing just how little an impact Billy Lynn made this weekend.
Weekend Wrap Up
1) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
$74,403,387 (4,144 theatres)
New opener
2) Doctor Strange
$17,761,060 (3694 theatres)
-58%
$181,627,937 Total
3) Trolls
$17,448,673 (3945 theatres)
-50%
$116,163,206 Total
4) Arrival
$12,138,671 (2335 theatres)
-49.6%
$43,709,470 Total
5) Almost Christmas
$7,256,950 (2379 theatres)
-52%
$25,673,690
6) Hacksaw Ridge
$6,666,920 (2883 theatres)
-37%
$42,771,212 Total
7) The Edge of Seventeen
$4,754,215 (1945 theatres)
New opener
8) Bleed for This
$2,366,810 (1549 theatres)
New opener
9) The Accountant
$2,156,421 (1423 theatres)
-51%
$81,293,439 Total
10) Shut In
$1,605,648
-55.5%
$6,042,393
