THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART (Warners Animation) is looking like a textbook example of a studio watering down its own franchise. Warners jumped into 2 spin-offs before even reaching its first official sequel, and the result according to early numbers at Deadline is a $8.9M opening day, down 48% from the first day for the first Lego Movie, and even worse than that looks, because $2.1M of that number is from a combination of Thursday night and previous paid previews. Lego 2 is on track for a $32M weekend, and possibly not much more than $100M in the US, especially with How To Train Your Dragon 3 just 2 weeks away, on costs that will be at least $225M with worldwide marketing taken into account. The Lego franchise hasn’t been a bonanza overseas (only Lego Ninjago earned more internationally than in the US, and just barely), so Lego 2 may struggle to break even.
WHAT MEN WANT (Paramount) is performing within expectations at $6.7M on Friday (including $1.3M from Thursday night) for an $18M weekend. It might reach $60M in the US, although it’s not clear how much of an international release Paramount plans, since even Girls Trip, a smash hit here, made only 18% of its total box office overseas.
It doesn’t seem as though Liam Neeson’s recent controversy much affected the opening of COLD PURSUIT (Studiocanal/Summit/Lionsgate), since its $3.6M Friday and likely $10M weekend are in line with prior tracking estimates. That would be Neeson’s lowest action-movie start, but not far from the recent openings of The Commuter ($13.7M), Run All Night ($11M) and A Walk Among The Tombstones ($12.8M).
The weekend’s other opening was the low-budget horror movie THE PRODIGY (Orion/MGM), with $2M on Friday and a possible $5M weekend and a US total that won’t be much higher than $10M. As is usually the case with this genre, the claim is that if only a tiny number of people pay for tickets, it will somehow show a profit, despite what are likely to be $20M+ in costs.
Holdovers will look relatively good this weekend, because Sunday will be much stronger than last week’s Super Bowl allowed. THE UPSIDE (Lantern/STX) dipped 28% on its 5th Friday to $1.8M for a $6M weekend that will put $100M in its US sights.
GLASS (Blinding Edge/Blumhouse/Universal) is looking for a 35% Weekend 4 drop to $6M, still on track for $110M in the US.
GREEN BOOK (Participant/DreamWorks/Reliance/Universal) dropped 33% from last Friday to $850K, and may hit $3M for the weekend. It’s on its way to $65M or so in the US, but that may go higher depending on what happens on Oscar night.
AQUAMAN (DC/Warners) is still selling tickets, down 42% to $700K Friday-to-Friday, and aiming for $3M for the weekend, as it heads to $335M in the US.
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (Sony Animation/Columbia/Sony) was down 41% from last Friday to $650K, for a $2.5M weekend and $185M US total.
Last weekend’s opening MISS BALA (Columbia/Sony) fell an ugly 74% from last Friday to $700K, and may have $2.5M for the weekend, unlikely to see $20M in the US.
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