Disney’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens will have no problem dominating the weekend box office for a third consecutive frame. On the heels of shattering the all-time second weekend record last weekend, The Force Awakens looks set to shatter the all-time third weekend record this weekend, which is currently held by Avatar with a third weekend gross of $68.49 million. Furthermore, by the end of this weekend Star Wars: The Force Awakens should already be within shouting distance of the $760.51 million final domestic gross of Avatar.
The Weinstein Company’s The Hateful Eight represents this weekend’s only new wide release. The Quentin Tarantino directed western was originally scheduled to expand into wide release on January 8, but that expansion was moved up to Wednesday, December 30 fairly last minute. The extended 70mm roadshow version of the film opened in 100 locations on Christmas day and has grossed a very promising $6.65 million in five days. BoxOffice feels The Hateful Eight will have the slight edge over Paramount’s Daddy’s Home in a close race for second place this weekend.
The Hateful Eight
PROS:
– Director Quentin Tarantino’s last film, 2012’s Django Unchained, was the highest grossing film of his career. After a Tuesday Christmas Day opening, the film registered a $30.1 million opening weekend take and went on to gross $162.8 million domestically. The Hateful Eight represents a return to the same western genre and should benefit from the largely positive general reaction to Django Unchained.
– The mentioned extended 70mm roadshow version of The Hateful Eight was off to a very strong start this past weekend with $4.61 million from just 100 locations, for a per-location average of $46,107.
– Over the past couple months the film has generated significantly more online activity on Twitter than any of last weekend’s five wide releases did over the same period of time.
– As seen with Daddy’s Home last weekend, there is potential for The Hateful Eight to receive a boost from serving as a primary alternative in the marketplace to Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
CONS:
– There doesn’t seem to be as much pre-release excitement for The Hateful Eight as there was for Django Unchained, especially outside of Tarantino’s more dedicated fans.
– While critical reviews for the film are solid (it currently boasts a 77 percent Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes), they are subpar by Tarantino’s lofty critical standards. Django Unchained boasted an 88 percent Tomatometer.
– Opening so close to Fox’s The Revenant (which will expand into wide release next weekend on January 8), could limit the potential for both The Hateful Eight and The Revenant a bit given the audience overlap between the two.
Top 10 Forecast
Thanks in part to the continued strength of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, BoxOffice projects this weekend’s top ten films will total $205.0 million. That would represent a terrific 63 percent increase over the $125.9 million top ten total of the same weekend last year and would get 2016 off to a blistering start. Warner’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies led the same weekend last year with a third weekend take of $21.7 million, while Relativity’s The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death debuted in fourth place with $15.0 million.
Check out our complete forecast in the table below.
| Title | Release Date | Distributor | Weekend | Domestic Total Through Sunday, Jan 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Star Wars: The Force Awakens | Dec 18, 2015 | Disney | $98,000,000 | $751,000,000 |
| The Hateful Eight | Dec 25, 2015 | Weinstein Company | $25,000,000 | $42,700,000 |
| Daddy’s Home | Dec 25, 2015 | Paramount | $23,000,000 | $87,500,000 |
| Sisters | Dec 18, 2015 | Universal | $12,700,000 | $63,000,000 |
| Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip | Dec 18, 2015 | Fox | $12,000,000 | $67,300,000 |
| Joy | Dec 25, 2015 | Fox | $10,300,000 | $38,300,000 |
| The Big Short | Dec 11, 2015 | Paramount | $8,300,000 | $32,300,000 |
| Concussion (2015) | Dec 25, 2015 | Sony / Columbia | $6,500,000 | $24,000,000 |
| Point Break (2015) | Dec 25, 2015 | Warner Bros. | $5,000,000 | $20,800,000 |
| The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 | Nov 20, 2015 | Lionsgate | $4,200,000 | $273,700,000 |
| Creed | Nov 25, 2015 | Warner Bros. / New Line | $3,300,000 | $102,800,000 |
| The Good Dinosaur | Nov 25, 2015 | Disney | $3,200,000 | $113,500,000 |
Daniel Garris, Shawn Robbins and Alex Edghill contributed to this report.
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