Welcome to "Box Office Battle," The Fly's weekly preview projecting what the top films will be at the box office this weekend.
OPENING THIS WEEKEND: Sony's (SNE) action movie "Bad Boys for Life," which is opening in over 3,100 theaters, has already brought in a January record $6.36M from Thursday night previews. This third film in the "Bad Boys" franchise, all of which star Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as buddy cops, is expected to bring in anywhere from $32M-$48M this MLK holiday weekend. It has fairly good reviews, with a 74% Fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes.
Also opening, and not expected to fare as well, is Comcast (CMCSA, CMCSK) subsidiary Universal's comedic family film "Dolittle," which stars Robert Downey Jr. The movie cost over $180M to make, and is projected to open in the $22M-$25M range. Variety said of it, "The movie, panned by critics and marred by production problems, looks to be another dud for the studio. It carries a dismal 17% score on Rotten Tomatoes."
STILL PLAYING: Universal's WWI film "1917" released wide last weekend, and since has received ten Oscar nominations, which should help its box office numbers this weekend. The Sam Mendes directed film is expected to finish in second place with a domestic gross of around $33.5M due to all the awards attention.
OVERALL DOMESTIC PROJECTIONS (FOUR DAY):
Other publicly traded companies in filmmaking include AT&T (T), Disney (DIS), Lionsgate (LGF.A, LGF.B), and ViacomCBS (VIAC).
Symbol now SONY
-0.09 (-0.12%)
Comcast
+0.57 (+1.22%)
Comcast
+ (+0.00%)
AT&T
+0.3 (+0.79%)
Disney
-0.43 (-0.30%)
Lionsgate
-0.34 (-3.01%)
Lionsgate
-0.325 (-3.06%)
Use PARA
-0.41 (-1.02%)