The focus on the performance of sequels this year is at an all time high, simply because there are far more sequels out there, and there’s definitely been hits or misses. The arrival of The Conjuring 2 came in just a million under the debut of the original back in July 2013 with a $40.3 million opening bow for director James Wan, who is moving on to Aquaman next. The other new sequel out this weekend is Now You See Me 2, which feels like it missed a host of opportunities with its name. The film landed third with a $23 million take, which is about $6 million shy of its opening back in 2013 where it did $29.3 million and did $75 million domestically. With this one getting a bigger budget at $90 million or so, expectations are up as well and it’s likely not to meet them.
On the new side, Warcraft landed and it’s going to be really interesting to see what happens here. The big budget film had the same kind of performance as Battleship and John Carter previously as it did $24 million this weekend. You can imagine all kinds of alarms going off at Universal over it, except… the film did $261 million overseas already with a big chunk of it in China, as a good portion of the film’s financing came from there to appeal to the gaming audience that thrives there. It’s worth noting that China’s film market, what Hollywood has access to, is excepted to surpass North America by the end of next year with the way the business is moving. So more is being geared toward there and with financial aspects bundled into it to ensure access to the market. So while a sequel may seem DOA here in the North American market, the incentives are there where if one is made, you can imagine this market being very secondary to overseas concerns on it. And the studios are going to start reflecting that more and more.
This coming weekend has a few new things opening, though most are small indie films. Going wide are two very different films. Disney is bringing out Pixar’s Finding Dory, which we expect to just dominate when it arrives, while Warner Bros. is bringing out Central Intelligence, hitting up the summer body action/comedy material in a big way.
| # | Title | Distributor Name | Weekend Revenue | Cume Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3-Day Total | # of Locs | Loc Avg | ||||
| 1 | Conjuring 2, The | Warner Bros. | $40,350,000 | 3,343 | $12,070 | $40,350,000 |
| 2 | Warcraft | Universal | $24,355,975 | 3,400 | $7,164 | $24,355,975 |
| 3 | Now You See Me 2 | Lionsgate | $23,025,000 | 3,232 | $7,124 | $23,025,000 |
| 4 | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The | Paramount | $14,800,000 | 4,071 | $3,635 | $61,039,783 |
| 5 | X-Men: Apocalypse | 20th Century Fox | $10,000,000 | 3,585 | $2,789 | $136,374,195 |
| 6 | Me Before You | Warner Bros. | $9,210,000 | 2,762 | $3,335 | $36,822,578 |
| 7 | Angry Birds Movie, The | Sony | $6,700,000 | 3,083 | $2,173 | $98,169,623 |
| 8 | Alice Through The Looking Glass | Disney | $5,544,821 | 2,898 | $1,913 | $62,437,432 |
| 9 | Captain America: Civil War | Disney | $4,300,195 | 2,101 | $2,047 | $396,857,343 |
| 10 | Jungle Book, The | Disney | $2,721,250 | 1,496 | $1,819 | $352,649,939 |
| 11 | Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising | Universal | $2,135,415 | 1,581 | $1,351 | $53,103,640 |
| 12 | Nice Guys, The | Warner Bros. | $2,100,000 | 1,147 | $1,831 | $32,642,192 |
