Magnus wrote:
The F13 factor may be bigger than I thought for IT2 after looking into it a bit more. The film likely would have just done 165% on Friday for a 10.6m day and a 33m weekend. I don't expect its weekend number to significanlty improve for what it should have done so i think best-case it has a slight increase today and drops 40% on Sunday for 34.5m weekend.
Unless Hustler is way more frontloaded than we think, the race for #1 will be very tight and probably come down to actuals.
The first It also had a Friday the 13th later in its run, and while the Friday was inflated, it still increased over 30% on Saturday. I think It will still increase 20-30% today and comfortably take #1 for the weekend.
But Hustlers is still the story of the weekend. It'll only be the THIRD non-franchise film this year to top $30 million, after two movies boosted by their brand-name directors (Us and OUATIH). All this movie had was what seeemd like an out-of-date star and some bomb-ass marketing. STX basically put all of their chips on this movie (moving 21 Bridges, My Spy, and PLAYMOBIL out of the way for it), and it paid off big time for it. The only concern going forward is if the B- Cinemascore means bad WOM and bad legs, but either way STX is making a profit off of this movie and possibly getting JLo an Oscar nomination, which practically makes them miracle workers.