The box office race is likely to be tight this weekend, with contenders at either end of the quality spectrum. THE EMOJI MOVIE (Columbia/Sony) drew first blood with a $10.2M opening day (including $900K from Thursday night), according to preliminary numbers at Deadline. That’s $2.2M better than the first day of Captain Underpants last month, which roughly tripled its Friday for the weekend. But Saturday will be the critical day for Emoji: animated movies typically do well at weekend matinees for obvious reasons (Captain Underpants climbed 11% on its 2d day), but Emoji has to cope with reviews and polling that suggests bad word of mouth, so its trajectory is unclear. For now, let’s call the weekend $27M.
DUNKIRK (Warners) slid 58% from last Friday to $8.2M, a hair better than the 59% drop that Wonder Woman had on its 2d Friday. (Both are far ahead of the norm for blockbusters: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 fell 71%, and Spider-Man: Homecoming dropped 73% on their parallel days.) If Dunkirk continues on a Wonder Woman path, it will decline around 43% for the weekend to $29M, on its way to $160M+ in the US.
GIRLS TRIP (Perfect World/Universal) is holding even better than Dunkirk, down an exceptional 50% Friday-to-Friday to $5.9M. Its weekend drop may be 40% or less, giving it a $19M weekend, and a solid chance of hitting $100M in the US at a decidedly non-blockbuster cost.
Despite a big-studio level marketing campaign that seemed to have star/producer Charlize Theron just about everywhere, ATOMIC BLONDE (Focus/Universal) isn’t sparking at the box office with a $7M opening day ($1.5M from Thursday night). An $18M weekend would be OK, but still with a distance to go toward profitability, even with moderate production costs.
SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (Marvel/Columbia/Sony) held well on its 4th Friday, down 40% to $3.8M for a likely $13M weekend. If it can hold onto its theatres, it might still reach $300M in the US.
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (TSG/20th) fell around 52% on its 3rd Friday to $2.9M for a $10M weekend, and is likely to end up around $140M in the US, the lowest of this Apes series.
DESPICABLE ME 3 (Illumination/Universal) wasn’t troubled by the arrival of Emoji Movie, down 37% from last Friday to $2.4M for a $9M weekend, continuing to chug its way to $240-250M in the US.
No one expected good news from the 2d weekend of VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS (Europa/STX)–the press it’s received this week has been almost exclusively about which of its financial backers is likely to bear the worst of its losses–and it dropped an ugly 73% from last Friday to $1.7M, for a $6M weekend and a US total that won’t get much past $40M.
BABY DRIVER (MRC/TriStar/Sony) and WONDER WOMAN (RatPac/Huahua/Tencent/DC/Warners) continue to be the summer’s audience favorites. Baby Driver declined 29% Friday-to-Friday to $1.3M, with a $4.5M weekend ahead and a route to $100M in the US. Wonder Woman held even better, down a mere 17% on its 9th Friday to $1M, for a $4M weekend and an appointment with $400M dead ahead.
There were no real standouts among the limited releases. DETROIT (Annapurna) is facing a rather blah $19K weekend average at 20 theatres before it goes wide next weekend. AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER (Paramount Vantage) may average $25K at 4, but that’s with an extremely aggressive program of in-theatre Al Gore Q&As to provide a boost. BRIGSBY BEAR (Sony Classics) could average $14K at 3. MENASHE (A24) may average $12K at 4.
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