MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION (Skydance/China Film Channel/Alibaba/Paramount) set its sights at a $50M opening weekend in the US (you could tell because the studio claimed the target was in the $40Ms), and it seems likely to get there. Preliminary numbers at Deadline give the 5th entry in the franchise a $20M opening day (incuding $4M from Thursday night), and if word of mouth holds–which it should–the weekend could be as high as $55M. The only other Mission that can really be compared to Rogue Nation is 2006’s M:I3, because the first two opened on Wednesdays and the 4th played for a week in Imax theatres before going wide, and that installment had a $16.6M opening day (before Thursday night openings were the rule) and a $47.7M weekend. More recently, Mad Max: Fury Road ran a $16.6M Friday into a $45.4M opening weekend. Rogue Nation actually cost less than Fury Road, and should be considerably stronger overseas, which will likely make this quite profitable. However, Rogue Nation will still find it a challenge to match the $209.4M US total of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
The news was less good for another elderly franchise, the attempted reboot of VACATION (New Line/Warners). After earning $6.3M in its first 2 days, Vacation managed $4.4M on Friday, for a likely wan 3-day weekend around $13M. Although the comedy had a relatively low $30M production budget, it carries the costs of the typically all-out Warners marketing campaign (probably at least $100M worldwide), making profit a distant goal.
MINIONS (Illuination/Universal) topped the holdovers, down 46% from last Friday to $4.7M, on its way to a $12.5M weekend that will put it near $290M by Sunday, still unlikely to catch Inside Out as the family movie of the summer. ANT-MAN (Marvel/Disney) isn’t showing any of the holding power that Guardians of the Galaxy had last summer. It fell 52% from last Friday to $3.5M, heading for a $12M weekend. (Guardians lost only 40% on its 3rd weekend.) Ant-Man is still on target to be the lowest-grossing Marvel-produced title, at around $155M in the US, unless you count the quasi-canon Incredible Hulk and its $134.8M. TRAINWRECK (Universal) is still holding well, down 47% from last Friday to $2.8M, for what should be a $9M weekend. It has a chance of hanging in for a $100M US total.
No surprise that PIXELS (Columbia/Sony) didn’t benefit from word of mouth, as it dropped 66% from last Friday to $3M, and will hope to reach $10M for the weekend. Pixels is unlikely to get past $70M in the US, and will need enormous overperformance overseas to break even. It’s a bit more surprising that SOUTHPAW (Wanda/Weinstein) took a 63% Friday-to-Friday pounding to $2.3M, with perhaps a $8M weekend ahead. Its hopes of running through the rest of summer and sparking a possible awards run for Jake Gyllenhaal seem dimmer now. PAPER TOWNS (20th), the very definition of “frontloaded,” plunged 75% from its opening day to $1.6M, with a $5M weekend and $35M US total ahead.
MR. HOLMES (Miramax/Roadside) expanded by about 30% to 901 theatres but still dropped 22% from last Friday to $600K. It should have a $2M weekend and may get to $15-20M in the US, not a bad result for a modest film. IRRATIONAL MAN (Sony Classics) expanded to 135 theatres and should have a quiet weekend per-theatre average of around $3K. That’s below the $4500 average for Magic In the Moonlight at 170 theatres, but it is above the $2300 average for You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger at 118, suggesting Irrational will end up at around $7M in the US.
THE END OF THE TOUR (A24) had a bright start at 4 NY/LA arthouses, with what should be a $30K weekend average. THE BEST OF ENEMIES (Magnolia) was slower, with a likely $7500 weekend average at 4.
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