On the surface, that 69% drop for Ride Along 2 seems awfully steep. The original Ride Along dropped just 47% on its second Friday, and the sequel had a relatively similar weekend multiplier to the original. But there is a clear precedent, and it’s (ironically?) in the very thing that makes director Tim Story interesting. Ride Along is the fourth franchise sprung from an “original” film directed by Mr. Story, alongside Barbershop, Fantastic Four, and Think Like A Man. And all three prior “sequel to Tim Story originals” films took massive nosedives in weekend #2.
To wit, Ride Along 2 earned $3.7 million yesterday, which is a drop of 69% from its $11.9m opening Friday. That is exactly in line with the 64% second Friday drop of Barbershop 2: Back in Business (which Story did not direct), the 71% second Friday drop of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and the 72% second Friday drop for Think Like A Man Too. That last one is probably how Ride Along 2 is going to play.
Expect a $11.8 million weekend (-66%) for a new $58m ten-day total, well below the $75m ten-day total of the first Ride Along. Again using Think Like A Man Too as a comparison, we can now expect the Kevin Hart/Ice Cube sequel to close out domestically with $80m. That’s fine for the $40m sequel, but Universal/Comcast Corp. may want to wait on overseas and/or post-theatrical before greenlighting Ride Along 3 at that budget.
The top movie of the weekend will actually be The Revenant, which added 152 theaters and earned another $4.6 million yesterday in its third Friday of wide release. That’s a 49% drop from last Friday, which is to be expected due to the snow storms as well as last weekend being a holiday frame and arriving just after the Oscar nominations. The Leonardo DiCaprio survival adventure has thus far earned $107m and should snag $15.8m for the weekend (-50%) for a $119m cume, just passing the $116m total of The Wolf of Wall Street.
Not to be outdone, Walt Disney’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens earned another $3.581 million on Friday, a drop of 43% from last Friday and bringing its cume to an absurd $868.55m domestic. Expect a $12.5m weekend for a new $878.5m cume after its sixth weekend. So yeah, it’ll probably top $900m domestic by the end of next weekend. It should top $1.9 billion worldwide this weekend if it hasn’t already, and the film’s total in China is now at $111m following a $3m Saturday. All things considered, I’m almost surprised that Disney didn’t do a sneak preview for The Finest Hours tonight in a classic double-sneak with Star Wars, but I guess that’s a relic of a bygone era
Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi added 528 theaters this weekend and held up relatively well. The Paramount/Viacom Inc. action pic earned $2.73m on Friday (-54%) to bring its cume to $26m. Expect a $9.4m second weekend (-41%) for a $33m ten-day cume. Sadly it will still struggle to top $50m. By the way, I now know that Bill O’Reilly skims and/or selectively cherry-picks my work, so that’s pretty neat.
As mentioned before, Daddy’s Home turned into the under-the-radar smash of the Christmas season, the Tomorrow Never Dies to this year’s Titanic. The Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy earned $1.31 million (-46%) on Friday despite losing 533 theaters. That brings the $50m comedy’s total to $134.8m. Expect a $4.6m sixth weekend (-52%) and a whopping $138m total for the Paramount release. Also doing well for Paramount is The Big Short, which earned another $985k despite losing 414 theaters. Expect a $3.2m weekend in 1,315 theaters for a $56.4m domestic cume for the Adam McKay/Charles Randolph financial crisis comedy.
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