Box Office Predictions – November 2017

After a fairly disappointing and frustrating month at the North American box office in October, November presents us with sequels to two surprising comedy hits, and two enormous superhero blockbuster films.

NORTH AMERICAN OPENING WEEKEND PREDICTIONS:

• A Bad Moms Christmas – STX Entertainment – November 1st, 2017 – $20 million
• Thor: Ragnarok – Disney – November 3rd, 2017 – $97 million
• Murder on the Orient Express – Fox – November 10th, 2017 – $23 million
• Daddy’s Home 2 – Paramount – November 10th, 2017 – $25 million
• Justice League – Warner Bros. – November 17th, 2017 – $145 million
• Coco – Disney – November 22nd, 2017 – $54 million

The big story that I simply must comment on this month is the battle of the ginormous superhero blockbusters from what many perceive to be rival comic book companies — Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok and DC Comics’ Justice League. Let’s be clear here, Justice League would have made something like, maybe, $200 million if Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad hadn’t both been received poorly.

Now, interestingly, Wonder Woman has been pushed forward as ‘the selling point’ in the marketing for Justice League. If Justice League had been put out before Wonder Woman was released this summer, then that simply wouldn’t have happened. But Wonder Woman was a huge success, even though it didn’t make as much money as Suicide Squad did in their respective opening weekends.

Wonder Woman made $103 million in its opening weekend, which would be a huge success for Thor: Ragnarok after Thor: The Dark World opened to $85 million in 2013. I think Ragnarok will do pretty well, and I definitely think it has a chance of getting as strong an opening weekend as Wonder Woman had, because Thor: Ragnarok is a good movie.

But that would actually be an awful opening weekend for Justice League, a film that is about the formation of a superhero team that is going to include Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman, probably Superman, and possibly the Green Lantern. It simply has to make as much money in its opening weekend as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice made ($166 million). But I just don’t see that happening right now, unless it turns out that it’s actually a pretty great movie.

MAJOR OPENING WEEKENDS – October:

• Blade Runner 2049 – Warner Bros. – October 6th, 2017 – $32 million (-23)
• The Foreigner – STX Entertainment – October 13th, 2017 – $13 million (-5)
• Geostorm – Warner Bros. – October 20th, 2017 – $13 million (-1)
• The Snowman – Universal – October 20th, 2017 – $3 million (-9)
• Jigsaw – Lionsgate – October 27th, 2017 – $16 million (+1)
• Suburbicon – Paramount – October 27th, 2017 – $2 million (-5)

I’m not really all that interested in talking about Geostorm, Jigsaw, The Foreigner, or Suburbicon. Their openings aren’t the two most interesting stories of October’s box office numbers. Today we have to talk about Blade Runner 2049 and The Snowman.

I loved Blade Runner 2049. At the time of writing, it is my favorite movie of 2017, and I, honestly, do think it is a masterpiece. However, I can definitely see why it wouldn’t appeal to most people (actually, my sister really didn’t care for the film).

I thought the early praise from critics might’ve intrigued general audiences, and I had hoped Ryan Gosling could help sell the movie to those unaware of the first film. But, as I wrote on twitter, a Rated R sequel to a cult classic 35 years in the making, which you have to plan your day around, was never going to be successful. At least not as successful as the studio behind it needed it to be.

Now, what about The Snowman? It’s trailer was pretty interesting, right? Yeah, but the movie is pretty bad. So, the early word of mouth coming out of Europe was awful, and that fact made the director speak out against the film. That’s the explanation for it’s poor opening weekend. It also didn’t help that they made a poster that was easy to make fun of. I even gave it a try:

THE BILLION DOLLAR CLUB:

1. Beauty and the Beast — Disney — $1,263 billion
2. The Fate of the Furious — Universal — $1,235 billion
3. Despicable Me 3 — Universal — $1,030 billion
   Box office totals as of October 31st, 2017, according to Box Office Mojo.

Not much has changed since last month. But this month actually does have a chance of producing a new member of the Billion Dollar Club. If Justice League is a great movie, then it should have a chance to make a billion dollars — just like both Avengers movies did.

– Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen