Box Office Predictions: Mean Girls to repeat while I.S.S bombs

Last Updated on January 24, 2024

Last weekend at the box office we saw Mean Girls, The Beekeeper, Wonka, Anyone But You and Migration take the top five spots on the charts. With only one new wide release this week that isn’t expected to light the box office on fire, you can expect those same five to repeat.

The real question this weekend will be: What kind of hold does Mean Girls have? Last week the musical adaptation saw a 3-day opening of $28.6 million (with its full 4-day holiday take coming in at $33.6 million). For a film budgeted at just $36 million, that was a tremendous start and no matter the drop off this week, Mean Girls will be looking at a profitable theatrical run, which is really all that is required from any movie. But you can’t ignore the lackluster 66% audience score. Generally new movies have a halo around them for the first few months of release where audience scores are over-inflated (or under-inflated if people genuinely hate a movie) before they even out over time. Mean Girls’ 66% audience score and B cinemascore show that word of mouth for this remake/ Broadway adaptation probably won’t be very strong. I expect a weekend drop in the 60% range for around $11.5 million.

That can leave the door open for last weeks runner up, The Beekeeper, to potentially pull an upset and grab first place if word of mouth on this Jason Statham/ David Ayer collaboration is strong enough. With decent critical reviews (including a 7/10 from our own Tyler Nichols) and a solid 94% audience score, alongside a B+ cinemascore, this tale of revenge should see a good hold from last weekends $16.5 million debut with around $8.5 million in receipts.

That will leave the remainder of the top five to see drops in the 20-30% range as audiences catch up on these films that have garnered strong word of mouth since they debuted in December. Wonka will continue its stellar run with another $6 million added to its nearly $200 million domestic total while the R rated romantic comedy Anyone But You will continue its surprisingly lucrative run with another $5 million. I had the chance to finally see this one earlier this week and while it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, I found it to be a really solid old school R rated comedy that gave me memories of Wedding Crashers, a film which I consider to be one of the best R rated comedies ever made. You can expect the animated birds of Migration to bring in families for a fifth place finish in the $4.5 million range.

This brings us to the only wide new release this week with I.S.S. The film is a sci-fi thriller, not a comedy, which is fitting since last week we learned that its star, Ariana DeBose, doesn’t really have a sense of humor! The film is garnering middle of the road reviews and is expected to absolutely tank at the box office this weekend with less than $4 million. With a budget of just around $23 million, it is possible, with good word of mouth, this one can leg out to a decent finish. That seems doubtful, especially after reading Tyler Nichols 5/10 review where he called the film a “frustrating experience.”

The remainder of the top ten should see some of the Award season favorites start to garner more eyes as films like Poor Things add theaters ahead of Tuesday’s Academy Award nominations. While fans of the slasher genre may be interested in checking out the new political satire/ slaughter fest Founders Day if they can find a local theater playing it.

Do you plan on hitting up theaters this weekend or are the divisional rounds of the NFL playoffs going to keep you at home (Go Niners!) Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check back on Saturday when we have a brief update on where this weekend’s box office numbers are heading.

TOP SIX PREDICTIONS

1. Mean Girls– $11.5 Million
2. The Beekeeper– $8.5 Million
3. Wonka– $6 Million
4. Anyone But You– $5 Million
5. Migration– $4.5 Million
6. I.S.S– $3 Million