Last weekend saw Bad Boys for Life pull in a much better than expected $73 million over the four-day MLK weekend. With this weekend’s newcomers not expected to offer much in the way of direct competition, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence have a clear path to an easy second weekend win. Opening up this weekend will be STX’s The Gentlemen, Universal’s The Turning and RLJE’s Color Out of Space.
Bad Boys for Life is looking at a second weekend haul in the $30 million range. The long-awaited sequel has been a hit with both audiences and critics alike, currently boasting a 76 percent critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, to go with a stellar 97 percent audience rating. That should help generate solid word of mouth heading into its second frame. The movie has already crossed the $112 million mark globally, with Sony already working on Bad Boys 4. If things continue to go well, we’re not going to have to wait anywhere near 17 years between sequels this time around.
The weekend’s best-performing box office newcomer should be The Gentlemen. This is the latest from director Guy Ritchie and it sees him going back to his quirky crime drama roots. With an ensemble led by Matthew McConaughey and Henry Golding, it’s looking at a debut in the $10 million range. That’s a decent start, which is good news for STX. They could use a hit after suffering a string of flops last year with Poms, UglyDolls and Playmobil: The Movie. The Gentlemen has already earned $18.4 million from international markets. This serves as a Guy Ritchie’s follow-up to last year’s live-action Aladdin remake, which went on to earn more than $1 billion at the box office.
Elsewhere, Universal is releasing the DreamWorks horror flick The Turning. Directed by Floria Sigismondi, it Mackenzie Davis and Finn Wolfhard and centers on a nanny who winds up with a job taking care of a couple of creepy orphans. It’s expected to take in between $7 and $9 million. Considering the movie has a price tag under $20 million, it could end up being a modest moneymaker. That’s good news for Universal, as they’ve suffered a couple of massive flops in a row with Cats and Dolittle.
On that front, Dolittle, which stars Robert Downey Jr., is expected to drop off in a big way and will be lucky to clear $10 million over the weekend. To date, it’s grossed just $57.4 million globally against a $175 million production budget. The weekend’s other new release, Color Out of Space, stars Nicolas Cage in an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation from Richard Stanley, who returns to the director’s chair for the first time in more than two decades. The movie has earned very solid reviews, currently at 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. No official estimates have been put forth, but the movie doesn’t need to make a boatload of cash, given its relatively low budget, said to be in the $11 million range. Most importantly, this looks to be continuing the trend of Cage making good movies again. Be sure to check out our full list of weekend box office predictions below and check back with us on Sunday for the weekend estimates. Numbers used in this report were provided by Box Office Mojo.
| 1 | Bad Boys for Life | |
| 2 | 1917 | |
| 3 | The Gentlemen | |
| 4 | Dolittle | |
| 5 | Jumanji: The Next Level | |
| 6 | The Turning | |
| 7 | Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker | |
| 8 | Little Women | |
| 9 | Just Mercy | |
| 10 | Knives Out |
