There are a slew of new releases at theaters this weekend, and among them the one with the biggest budget is Geostorm, the new movie that is partially set in space and features scientists banding together to fight against a perfect storm of natural disasters, including giant tidal waves and intense lightning. Unfortunately for the bigger budget adventure story starring Gerard Butler, the movie may not do so well at the domestic box office. In fact, it's expected to lose to Boo 2! A Madea Halloween.
Learning that a Madea movie is expected to do well at the box office shouldn't be a huge surprise, but it is a big deal for Geostorm, which needs to recoup its $120 million plus budget (and some estimates think the movie cost even more than Warner Bros. is letting on). Reports this week note that Geostorm is only expected to bring in between $10 and $15 million, which means it most certainly shouldn't beat Boo 2 and probably won't beat repeat entry Happy Death Day, either.
Boo 2! A Madea Halloween is expected to make between $20 and $25 million at the box office this weekend, which should be enough to make it the #1 movie of the weekend. Following that could be last week's big winner Happy Death Day, which is expected to earn around $12 million this weekend. It's possible that Geostorm could eke ahead this weekend, but that's still bad news for the disaster movie, as Happy Death Day has already made up its small budget in ticket sales and Geostorm will need to do a lot more business in order to do the same.
According to Deadline, Geostorm has already gone through $15 million in reshoots, and while it is getting a wide release in 3,246 theaters, it hasn't been testing all that well. Although bad scores don't always sink a movie, Warner Bros. also hasn't put a ton of money into trying to push this movie onto people, so it's likely to have a quick run in theaters and may not even recoup its budget. The movie also had a less-than-successful opening in Asia last weekend, only bringing in $9.7 million.
Although we've talked about a lot of movies already, there are two more new releases this week. The Snowman, from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy director Tomas Alfredson, is projected to make around $10 million. Only The Brave, despite good reviews, is expected to bring in around $6 million. Both The Snowman and Only The Brave had budgets in the $30 million plus range, so they have less ground to make up to make monetarily, but neither anticipated intake this weekend is particularly of note.
Finally, Blade Runner 2049 is heading into its third weekend and is expected to make around $8 million, marking it as another movie that has struggled at the box office this fall. Again, none of these should come anywhere close to Boo 2! As always, stay tuned to see how the box office does pan out this weekend, and if you want to know more about what is new in theaters, take a look at This Rotten Week.
