Welcome to the most predictable weekend of the box office season thus far. With no major offerings from any studio coming out this weekend, unless you were particularly excited aboutUnforgettablefor some deeply misguided reason,The Fate of the Furiousis going to pick up its second weekend with no problem. As of Friday, the eighth (and worst) volume in theFast and Furiousfranchise had brought in $11.2 million, withUnforgettable($1.7 million) and Disney’sBorn in China($1.6 million) representing the strongest showings from the new releases. One can comfortably expect a blowout here.
Unfortunately, the best of the new releases -Ben Wheatley’s ludicrously funFree Fire- is not doing very well on the big board, but considering its relatively low budget, it might very well recover by the end of all of this. Elsewhere,The Promise, a frustratingly dull movie about a severely important subject, brought in some $1.4 million, with a timid $4 million weekend in its sights, thanks largely to the appearance ofChristian BaleandOscar Isaacin the lead male roles.The Promise,Unforgettable, andBorn in Chinaeach have a chance of cracking the top five, but it’s unlikely that all three of them will land there by the time the Sunday numbers are all in.
Other than that, this will likely look like a duplicate from last week.The Boss BabyandBeauty and the Beastwill still likely land in the second and third place, withSmurfs: The Lost VillageandGoing in Stylebattling it out with the newcomers for the fourth and fifth place respectively. That being said, considering how longBeauty and the Beasthas been in theaters at this point,Unforgettablemight eek out a third-place showing; they are both currently tracking for a $7 million weekend. Still, the story here is that The Fate of the Furious will own its second frame entirely, and if estimates are to be believed at this point, this weekend will end withF. Gary Gray’s tone-deaf mess creeping past $900 million worldwide, aiming directly to cross $1 billion by the end of its stay in theaters. It’s as true at the box office as anywhere else: people like what they know.
