The finale of the Maze Runner trilogy hits theaters this weekend as teens and young adults will be courted amid a lack of direct competition, although diminished returns have become common for the genre in recent years and should again be expected for Death Cure.
Meanwhile, Hostiles expands nationwide and hopes to carve out an audience among adults. The studio is bullish with projections north of $12 million for the Christian Bale/Scott Cooper western, although we’re more cautious based on the film’s close tracking proximity to The Promise (which opened to $4.1 million) and Free State of Jones ($7.6 million), as well as the lack of an Oscar push that could drive much of its own target audience to the handful of other prestige titles expanding this weekend.
While our official forecast below only includes a few of those award hopefuls, additionally look for the likes of Call Me By Your Name, Darkest Hour, and Lady Bird to post significant gains of varying degrees this weekend, with each standing reasonable odds at earning between $3 million and $4 million+ a piece.
As always, please note that no official theater counts have yet been confirmed by the various studios behind the crop of Oscar contenders. Should any of their counts significantly deviate from our current expectations, we’ll update this forecast before Friday.
The Weekend Forecast:
| Film | Distributor | 3-Day Weekend Forecast | Projected Domestic Total through Sunday, January 28 | % Change from Last Week |
| Maze Runner: The Death Cure | Fox | $21,000,000 | $21,000,000 | NEW |
| Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle | Sony / Columbia | $14,700,000 | $336,300,000 | -25% |
| The Post | Fox | $11,600,000 | $61,500,000 | -1% |
| The Greatest Showman | Fox | $9,100,000 | $126,100,000 | -15% |
| 12 Strong | Warner Bros. | $8,700,000 | $30,000,000 | -45% |
| Den of Thieves | STX | $7,700,000 | $28,100,000 | -49% |
| Paddington 2 | Warner Bros. | $6,600,000 | $33,000,000 | -18% |
| The Shape of Water | Fox Searchlight | $5,300,000 | $37,000,000 | +142% |
| Star Wars: The Last Jedi | Disney / Lucasfilm | $4,700,000 | $611,200,000 | -29% |
| Hostiles | Entertainment Studios | $4,500,000 | $6,400,000 | +1283% |
| Phantom Thread | Focus | $4,000,000 | $11,900,000 | +24% |
| Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri | Fox Searchlight | $3,800,000 | $37,200,000 | +96% |
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