Weekend Box Office Predictions: Can Mother! & American Assassin Beat IT?

Mother
Mother!

As Warner Bros./New Line’s IT continues to decimate box office records – it has grossed $151.51 million thus far, so have respect – Lionsgate and Paramount will try to cash in on this re-energized marketplace. Predictions are below.

 

American Assassin (Lionsgate/CBS)

Lionsgate’s American Assassin, based on the popular Mitch Rapp novels by the late author Vince Flynn, arrives in a time where R-rated actioners are making a comeback of sorts, plus it stars Michael Keaton (who arguably isn’t a big draw, but let me believe). Decent comps for American Assassin are two other Lionsgate action flicks – John Wick (which opened with $14.42m) and The Hitman’s Bodyguard ($21.38m). Assassin lacks the celebrity duo of Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson in Hitman’s Bodyguard, and doesn’t offer the same hook as John Wick, which served as a “comeback” film for Keanu Reeves. American Assassin’s brand recognition could help mitigate the above, however.

Reception for American Assassin has been mixed-negative: the film has a 45% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (avg. critic score being 4.7/10 from nearly 60 reviews) and a 6.9/10 on IMDb from nearly 1,000 ratings. While the film’s notices may prevent it from being a breakout hit, there is still a reliable audience for visceral action films. Lionsgate predicts an opening weekend from $11 million to $14 million, neither of which are ideal numbers given the Dylan O’Brien-starrer boasts a $33m production cost. Plus, the power of IT can’t be denied – last weekend, it made up a whopping 75% of the frame’s top twelve gross. Somewhere in between John Wick and The Hitman’s Bodyguard looks most probable for American Assassin.

Prediction: $16 million, #2 rank

 

Mother! (Paramount)

Darren Aronofsky’s follow-up to 2014’s Noah ($101.2m) finds the writer-director in comfortable territory: freaking the hell out of you with plenty of artistry to spare. With that, Mother! is one to keep an eye on, despite a particular scary clown gobbling up everyone’s money recently. The common thinking is that the success of IT will have an adverse impact on Mother!’s performance, though that may not be the case; simply put, they are very different films. IT is a widely-appealing carnival frighthouse with swaths of nostalgia in its corner, whereas Mother! is a slower, more calculated film that wants to get under your skin (think Rosemary’s Baby). It also helps that Mother! stars many a familiar face – Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Ed Harris to name a few.

Paramount’s marketing for Mother! has been effective and chilling (even if the trailers give away a tad too much, in my opinion), emphasizing the mysterious, tense relationship between Lawrence and Bardem. Mother! has a 74% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (avg. critic score being 6.8/10 from nearly 130 reviews) and a 6.5/10 on IMDb from over 2,200 ratings. Mother!’s IMDb score indicates it could be a film that draws arthouse audiences more so than the general public – whether that’s a good thing remains to be seen, though it’s worth noting Mother! carries a $30m production cost. Regardless, there appears to be a curiosity factor with Mother!, even though it’s opening under IT’s shadow.

Prediction: $12 million, #3 rank

 

HOLDOVERS

It 2017
Warner Bros./New Line Cinema

1. IT (Warner Bros./New Line) – $56.8 million (-54%), $214.8m cume
4. Home Again (Open Road) – $5.14 million (-40%), $16.94m cume
5. The Hitman’s Bodyguard (Lionsgate) – $2.45 million (-49%), $69.24m cume
6. Wind River (Weinstein) – $1.94 million (-38%), $28.49m cume
7. Annabelle: Creation (Warner Bros./New Line) – $1.8 million (-55%), $99.04m cume
8. Leap! (Weinstein) – $1.34 million (-45%), $17.83m cume
9. Dunkirk (Warner Bros.) – $1.12 million (-40%), $184.94m cume
10. Spider-Man: Homecoming (Sony) – $1.08 million (-46%), $329.45m cume

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