Weekend box office: Ninja Turtles beat Me Before You and Popstar
The summer of 2016 might go down as the summer that killed sequels. The latest victim this year is TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS, which is barely going to pull in $30 million at the weekend box office. To put it in perspective, the 2014 Ninja Turtles film more than doubled that opening. And you can go back to the very original Ninja Turtles film in 1990 which managed $25 million. So there’s no way to look at Shadows without being disappointed. On a positive note, ME BEFORE YOU (click the link to read our review). The romantic drama with Emilia Clarke opened well and is flirting with $20 million. Finally, there’s POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING, which may not crack $5 million. That’s a sad opening for a funny film, but I think it will clean up on home video in a few months.
Next week should be yet another interesting weekend. First, we have THE CONJURING 2, which is taking a bold move for a horror film by coming out in the middle of the summer movie season. Early reviews have been surprisingly positive for the horror sequel, so I expect it to do well. We also have another sequel with NOW YOU SEE ME 2. The original was a nice surprise, but I’m not sure it was strong enough to bring an audience to a sequel. Finally, we have WARCRAFT, which might be the biggest question mark of the summer. The visuals look stunning and the game is beloved by millions, but I’m not convinced it’s going to find box office success, regardless of how good it is. But I do think it will do just enough to take the top spot, but only because of a lack of competition. Note: the numbers below will be updated as they become final.
1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows $31.5
2. X-Men: Apocalypse $22m
3. Me Before You $18.4m
4. Alice Through the Looking Glass $11.3m
5. The Angry Birds Movie $9m
6. Captain America: Civil War $7.2m
7. Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping $4.5m
8. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising $4.4m
9. The Jungle Book $4.3m
10. The Nice Guys $2.7m
(Deadline)
[fbcomments]