Your Complete Weekend Box Office Tracking, Predictions, & Analysis (01.29.15)

by: Madelyn Glymour | Contributor

	AMERICAN SNIPER	$45 million
	PROJECT ALMANAC	$15 million
	PADDINGTON	$8 million
	THE BOY NEXT DOOR	$7 million
	THE WEDDING RINGER	$6 million

Another weekend, another American Sniper box office win. Given its $64 million take last weekend, it would take a real juggernaut to derail Sniper‘s inexorable march to fiscal, cultural, and Academy Awards domination. Of this week’s three wide releases, only Project Almanac is poised to break into the top five, so it doesn’t seem likely that’s going to happen.

The found-footage sci-fi Almanac is, however, poised to take second place, with a likely opening weekend gross north of $15 million. Considering its production budget was only $12 million, that’s not the worst news. But thriller The Loft and Kevin Costner’s drama Black or White (the latter of which has been out in limited release for some time, but widens this weekend) will likely not be so lucky; both are playing in fewer than 2,000 theaters, which combined with lackluster reviews and tracking has all the makings of a dismal box office showing for both.

	Opening Weekend	Current Gross	Facebook Likes	Tweets
AMERICAN SNIPER	$89.269 million	$213.424 million	1,255,031	581,076
PROJECT ALMANAC	N/A	N/A	325,168	31,165
PADDINGTON	$18.967 million	$41.588 million	570,285	–
THE BOY NEXT DOOR	$14.91 million	$17.799 million	327,908	99,348
THE WEDDING RINGER	$20.649 million	$41.758 million	422,924	18,529

That leaves spots three, four, and five for returning players. Taken 3, the oldest and least successful of last week’s top five, will almost certainly drop out, with Paddington, The Boy Next Door, and The Wedding Ringer hanging on. The Boy Next Door was the number two movie last week, but it received terrible reviews, and its audience is the kind that will easily flee to Project Almanac. The well-reviewed Paddington, which remains the only family-friendly option in theaters, has more staying power; it should overtake Boy Next Door for third place with about $8 million. Boy Next Door will likely drop to fourth, and The Wedding Ringer, in its third week, will hang on to fifth.

	Rotten Tomatoes			IMDb		Metacritic
	Critics	Users	# of Ratings	Stars	# of Ratings
AMERICAN SNIPER	72	88	94,447	7.6	75,764	72
PROJECT ALMANAC	42	N/A	15,490	6.8	693	50
PADDINGTON	98	87	27,174	7.7	9,606	77
THE BOY NEXT DOOR	13	50	16,455	4.6	1,664	31
THE WEDDING RINGER	33	76	24,038	6.9	2,891	34

(Sources: boxoffice.com, rottentomatoes.com, imdb.com, metacritic.com. Starred figures are estimates. Tweets represent figures for this week only. Figures represent numbers at time of writing, and may have changed. Tracking Board does not report Rotten Tomatoes user ratings for movies that have not yet seen wide release.)