Thursday 1/4 Update: Confirmed location counts for Darkest Hour (1,730) and Molly’s Game (1,608) were announced this morning. We’ve updated our final pre-release forecasts below (up from $4.3 million and $5.2 million, respectively, in Wednesday’s original forecast).
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Wednesday 1/3: The first weekend of 2018 is upon us. As has occurred in years past, studios are continuing to (mostly) shy away from new major releases as holiday holdovers remain the big draw for most audiences. The exception this weekend is Universal’s latest sequel in the Insidious franchise, which is tracking well among young women but should otherwise perform modestly compared to the second and third films in the franchise. An opening between $15-19 million appears likely.
STX is expanding Molly’s Game on the heels of strong reviews for Jessica Chastain’s lead role and writer Aaron Sorkin’s first directorial effort. The studio previously estimated an expansion to around 1,500 theaters, although no update has been shared this week as of this report’s publishing. We’re currently forecasting the film will earn between $4-6 million this weekend.
Meanwhile, it’s expected that films like Darkest Hour and The Shape of Water could expand further this weekend, but their respective studios have not confirmed weekend theater counts as of Wednesday morning.
Also of note this weekend is the fact that the east coast is bracing for a major winter storm, which could impact major cities both north and south.
The Weekend Forecast:
| Title | Distributor | 3-Day Weekend | Domestic Total through Sunday, January 7 | % Change |
| Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle | Sony / Columbia | $32,000,000 | $235,500,000 | -36% |
| Star Wars: The Last Jedi | Disney / Lucasfilm | $25,000,000 | $572,500,000 | -52% |
| Insidious: The Last Key | Universal | $16,800,000 | $16,800,000 | NEW |
| The Greatest Showman | Fox | $10,400,000 | $70,200,000 | -33% |
| Pitch Perfect 3 | Universal | $8,300,000 | $81,100,000 | -51% |
| Ferdinand | Fox | $7,100,000 | $69,000,000 | -38% |
| Darkest Hour | Focus Features | $6,000,000 | $27,700,000 | +10% |
| Molly’s Game | STX | $5,500,000 | $12,400,000 | +134% |
| Coco | Disney / Pixar | $4,600,000 | $190,500,000 | -38% |
| All the Money in the World | Sony / TriStar | $3,500,000 | $20,000,000 | -38% |
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