Who would have thought it, but we have quite a competitive weekend… in January. The month does have the reputation of studios placing films they thought would tank in the festive period or weren’t good enough for the awards race in the month, but recently it has become a month for films to have long legs and become sleeper hits. This weekend we have two new wide releases, not to mention the continued run of the double Golden Globe winning and ten-time Oscar nominated epic, ‘1917’.
Let’s start off with ‘Bad Boys For Life’. The film, from Sony Pictures, is a threequel, with the last in the franchise being seventeen years ago, reuniting Martin Lawrence and Will Smith. With the budget of $90M, the film will need a bit of oomph to break even, and with the international market not looking like it will be strong for the film, the MLK opening weekend will be vital for the action-comedy.
Reviews haven’t dropped, but tracking from three-weeks ago indicated a $40-45M four-day opening weekend is on the cards. This would be solid enough, placing it alongside ‘Ride Along’ and its sequel for MLK opening weekends. In fact, if it can get above the $45M mark, it will be the second biggest MLK weekend, nay, weekend in January in history, with ‘American Sniper’ still holding that feat with its incredible $90M.
Reviews aren’t really a problem for a film like this, and I think it will take something along the lines of $42-46M in its opening three-day, and will hope to rule the box office all the way up until ‘Birds Of Prey’, but, as you will see as you read further and further in this article, there will be quite the competition for it, particularly if it is received poorly.
Next up we have ‘Dolittle’. The remake of the remake of the classic starring Robert Downey Jr. as the titular character has been destined to do poorly for months with its January release date and massive $175M budget.
Tracking has been suggesting that just a $25-30M four-day was likely, with Universal correlating with that data. That would be poor, with it needing the international market for its saving grace. The good news is that it took a huge $7M debut in South Korea, beating out ‘The Rise Of Skywalker’ on its debut (Yes, that really did happen), which is a blessing I suppose, and if the film if received well internationally, then we may only be looking at a ‘Blade Runner 2049’ ($260M on a $150M budget) bomb rather than a ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ bomb ($261M on a $192M budget).
But it’s not all bad news for Universal, they still have ‘1917’. The WW1 epic directed by Sam Mendes took a seriously strong wide debut of $36.8M last weekend, with it becoming a frontrunner for the Oscars in four weeks time after taking two Golden Globes and ten Oscar nominations.
The one-shot wonder will hope that all of that and the goodwill will propel it to box office glory. The best (and only) comparison we truly have is ‘The Revenant’. That Leonardo DiCaprio feature (that was also a one-shot film, kind of) took $39.8M on its wide release on the same weekend that ‘1917’ did this same feat, and over four days dropped just 8%. I’m not sure ‘1917’ will repeat that, however a drop of about 25% is what I’m expecting over four days, giving the $90M-budgeted film $27.5M over the MLK weekend, which in the end could be more than ‘Dolittle’. This should bring its stateside total to about $65M, as it continues its surge at the box office.
Looking at other holdovers, ‘The Rise Of Skywalker’ will be looking at $8M over the three-day period and $10M over the MLK weekend. This should push it to just south of $490M in the US, with the $300M-budgeted finale now passing the $1BN mark globally. It will pass the half-billion mark in the United States, but don’t expect much more after that.
‘Jumanji: The Next Level’ is now parallel with ‘Star Wars’, also looking at $10M this weekend. The Sony threequel ceases to die at the box office, continuing to be another surprise hit of this season. By the end of the weekend, we should be seeing the $125M-budgeted adventure-epic at about $270M in the US and $680M worldwide. Roll in ‘Jumanji 4’ in December 2022.
Warner Brothers’s ‘Just Mercy’ will be taking $7M over the four-day, with the well-received Destin Daniel Cretton film failing to receive any recognition at the Oscars. After eleven days of release in over 2,000 theatres, the Jamie Foxx film will be at $20M in the US.
‘Little Women’ should get an Oscar bumb this weekend after taking home six including Best Picture, Actress and Adapted Screenplay. The Sony feature will be passing $80M in the US as it continues its charge to the century mark in the US.
The crowd-pleaser ‘Knives Out’ should have another bump this weekend thanks to it being a holiday. The Oscar-nominated (!) whodunnit by Rian Johnson should take another $5M in its eighth weekend, now standing past $145M in the US and closing in on $300M globally… against a $40M budget.
Oh, and I feel like I should mention ‘Uncut Gems’ will likely become A24’s highest grossing film in the US by the end of this four-day weekend, but AMPAS couldn’t give a s**t.
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