Weekend Box Office Predictions: Can Coco Dethrone Justice League?

Yes.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on.

 

Coco (Disney)

Pixar’s latest offering, Coco, hopes to perpetuate Disney’s legacy at the Thanksgiving box office, which is to say it’s hoping to make oodles and oodles of dollars. It very well could, and very well has, as Coco opened to $13.24 million on Wednesday. Coco’s Wednesday debut is a +26% improvement over 2015’s The Good Dinosaur ($9.76m) and -15% off from last year’s Moana ($15.52m).

Odds are Coco will continue propelling itself through the Thanksgiving weekend with ease, what with universal acclaim in its corner – as of this writing, Coco has a 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (avg. critic score being 8.1/10 from >150 reviews) and a 9.1/10 score on IMDb from >7,000 ratings. Coco’s unique cultural perspective gives it an edge, too. There’s a novelty factor here, something Pixar’s other 2017 offering, Cars 3 ($152.9m), couldn’t conjure.

If Coco continues its improvement pattern over The Good Dinosaur, we’re eyeing a $49.3m 3-day weekend and a 5-day haul just under $70m. If Coco keeps playing -15% below Moana we’ll get similar figures ($48.1m 3-day/$69.8m 5-day). A good rule of thumb is not to doubt an acclaimed Pixar original, so with that in mind it’s plausible Coco’s numbers will go a bit higher.

Prediction: $50 million (#1 rank, 3-day), $75 million (5-day)

 

Roman J. Israel, Esq. (Sony)

Denzel Washington leads in Dan Gilroy’s Roman J. Israel, Esq., the director’s follow-up to 2014’s excellent Nightcrawler.

That sounds all well and good, the only issue being Israel’s reception has been pretty lukewarm. As I usually preach, movies deliberately dropped in awards season need to be damn fine to succeed in awards season. Conversely, Denzel Washington is one of the few financially reliable movie stars out there today – Washington’s opening average this decade is an impressive $28.5m.

Israel is expanding from a limited release where it earned $74,277 (from 4 theatres, averaging $18,569). On Wednesday, Israel earned $755,000 from 1,648 venues, admittedly not promising and wiping out any hope for a double-digit weekend. There’s a lot to choose from this time of year and Gilroy’s legal drama hasn’t made a compelling case (I hate me too) for itself. Alas, maybe Roman J. Israel, Esq. will find its footing in the post-theatrical market.

Prediction: $4 million (3-day, #11 rank), $5.3 million (5-day)

 

HOLDOVERS

2. Justice League (Warner Bros.) – $42.2 million (-55%, 3-day), $60 million (5-day), $171.9m cume
3. Wonder (Lionsgate) – $24.8 million (-10%, 3-day), $35 million (5-day), $72.2m cume
4. Thor: Ragnarok (Disney) – $16.25 million (-25%, 3-day), $25 million (5-day), $278.2m cume
5. Daddy’s Home 2 (Paramount) – $13 million (-10%, 3-day), $19 million (5-day), $73m cume
6. Murder on the Orient Express (Fox) – $12.4 million (-10%, 3-day), $18 million (5-day), $73.6m cume
7. The Star (Sony) – $9.3 million (-5%, 3-day), $13 million (5-day), $25.5m cume
8. A Bad Moms Christmas (STX) – $5.6 million (-20%, 3-day), $7.5 million (5-day), $60.5m cume
9. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Fox Searchlight) – $4.4 million (+300%, 3-day), $6 million (5-day), $7.7m cume
10. Lady Bird (A24) – $4.15 million (+65%, 3-day), $5.5 million (5-day), $10.8m cume