Hey Everyone! We are going to have some fun with numbers here, by making some solid to ridiculous guess works. In return, who knows, we might end up making some all-telling prophecies or in few other cases, completely utter trash. It was the part and parcel of this box office prediction game. Let’s get this thing going.

To state the obvious, I am playing catch up game here and more so we were already looking at some incredible string of franchise entries, making it to the theatres this year. If I am correct, hope I was, we are having 38 such franchise entries for the year 2017. Personally, I am only going to pick 30. Point being, 6 of those already playing in the theatres. Well that means, technically, I am going to do the box office prediction ‘only’ for remaining 24, yet only after quickly getting through those ‘six‘ first.

 1. We have a rare thing here (It still is!) but I wish Hollywood and ‘Rest-of-the-world-woods’ will make more of those, I mean enough of those, in very near future (well, if you look at this year’s movie schedule the signs are pretty encouraging and obvious) . A female-centric action/fantasy movie. What a fabulous way to start this year’s predictions. I am talking about, Sony’s Underworld: Blood Wars starring Kate Beckinsale, Theo James, Lara Pulver, Charles Dance.  This sleeper franchises sure had brought people to the theatres every time it came out to play, if not massive but decent. Back then, Underworld was only such franchise which was popular enough, to be based on vampire-werewolf mythology, until Twilight came and stole it’s thunder. It’s modestly budgeted ($35m) fifth instalment released this January, did ‘just’ fine at theatres recently.  It picked up a little over $30m in North America and a notch above $50m overseas. Having so far grossed over $80m to date, it looks like it didn’t have enough firepower left, to take this one over $100m milestone globally. For me, it did okay. Just ‘okay’.

2. Next up, Paramount’s xXx: The Return of Xander Cage with one of most diverse cast featuring Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Kris Wu, Ruby Rose, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev, Toni Collette with Samuel L. Jackson. Arrived earlier this year, on January, this action-adventure did just okay in North America, but kicked ass overseas, as it currently boast a surprisingly good $338m+ worldwide gross. Well, having a diverse cast and Vin Diesel-Donnie Yen popularity in China helped it propel to this massive total, despite hugely under performing in NA with mere $45m. But it flexed it muscles overseas, to land itself within a touching distance for a $300m+ overseas total. Having grossed $293m+ already overseas, with China alone pulling off $150m+ by itself, this franchise sure earned it’s place back, as one of the popular movie franchise around, among the many, many, many movie franchises currently active in the Hollywood and elsewhere.

3. We have another of those, what I had earlier called as ‘a rare thing soon-going-to-become-frequent’. Now, Sony’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter  and the cast includes Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Rubin Rose, Eoin Macken, William Levy and Iain Glen. It opened earlier on January this year and I had already seen it in theatres. Hey, I am sure not going to review it. To be fair, I am not even good enough to do that yet. So, speaking of box office potential of this movie, until just a day before I began working on this post, it sure looked like a dud, only to get patched up by the massive Chinese opening weekend. It pulled of an unimaginable $94m+ opening and nearing $150m mark there. Irrespective of whether or not it will reach any specific milestone, it was ‘Hit’ nevertheless. A very big one, indeed. As it stands now, it a earned fabulous $307m worldwide($27m in NA, $280m overseas). Kudos for that. Yeah, without factoring inflation adjustment, it became the biggest of the series worldwide. I sort of didn’t see that coming.

4. How about this one! A franchise based on the popular toy brand, makes a movie based on one of the most popular superhero on the silver screen. WB’s The Lego Batman with voice cast featuring Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Micheal Cera, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes among others. Had been in theatres since early February, and was turning out to be a decent second outing if not massive like the original. Also it’s playing more like Lego sequel and lot less like the one based on ‘Batman and his friends’. So with few international markets left to venture, if this one have any extra pieces to build up on it’s already decent $275m global gross, it may tower itself to something-close-to-massive figure of $350m. Well, for now it seems like a distant possibility, let’s hope that it didn’t even had to lose any more bricks to reach $320m worldwide (with $158m  in NA and $116m overseas) against the reported as well as encouraging $80m budget.

5. We have another of those thing which attracts more female audiences than the rest but not even close or as same as the kind of movies we visited earlier. I mean, I only meant to say that we are dealing with some seriously intense stuff here. You know what I mean. In saying so, we have here the second installment of hugely successful original, Fifty Shades of Grey. Well, Universal’s Fifty Shades Darker starring Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson in the lead, opened in February and was performing comparatively softer than the first. Yet we can’t rule this out as an underperformer of any sorts. It tends to happen with most of the sequels, if the original turned out to be kind of great or else rode on the wave of built-in popularity. Till now, it collected nearly $370m globally ($112m in NA and $256m elsewhere) and still got few markets left. If lucky, it may get to $400m global, but not a sure thing.

6. Next one was ‘Genre defining’ or we can at least say that it turned out to be an unique blend of the most popular genre of this decade. Well, studios were making sure, we will get more such ‘Hybrids‘ in years to come. As of now it was one of its kind. An R-Rated, Superhero-Drama. Name was Logan. This 20th Century Fox’s  offering feature stars Logan Hugh Jackman(his final appearance as Wolverine), Patrick Stewart, Boyd Holbrook, Dafne Keen, Stephen Merchant.  Having been in theatres since March 2nd, it pulled off a massive opening of $88m in North America and $159m from the rest of the world, to land itself as one of the biggest R-Rated global opener ever with $247m total. It claws were now sinking deeper into the movie goers interest, despite being R-rated, notably unlike its on-screen predecessors. Also getting a huge boost from overwhelmingly positive reviews and good word-of-mouth, it so far amassed ridiculously awesome $437m global (NA-$155m and Rest-$282m) . Also, it managed to hold off against a ‘beast’ this weekend. With notably Japan still to come, it might have no trouble in clearing $600m, if Japan performs convincingly better and also if it holds well against yet another “Beast” arriving early march, it may even claw its way to somewhere in the range of  $620m-$650m with $230m from NA and closer to $390m-$420m elsewhere. If I got anything left to say, this is it. “Simply, Wow!”

7. Here comes my first prediction of the year. I am deeply saddened by the fact I already missed six. Though I took solace in the fact, that I still got 30 more ways to makes me sounds like crazy as…Okay, first up, WB’s Kong Skull Island which boast the cast which includes Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John Goodman, Jian Tian among others. I did my predictions even before it opened, but can’t be able to post it soon enough. Well, my prediction stood at $45m but Kong climbed it’s way past $60m in US. If it’s great world of mouth delivers it will sure cross $150m mark in NA. Overseas as well was bigger that I thought it will be, claiming a beasty $65m launch (mine’s was at $50m). So globally it stands now at $146m. If it makes even halfway decent business from here on out (2.5x multiplier), keep in mind that it still got China and Japan in it’s grasp, it may even get to $550m-$600m probably. But $480m-$520m (NA $155m, overseas will come around $325m-$360m) was more than just assured for this movie, which was part of Hollywood’s only sixth such ‘Cinematic Universes’ currently made it to screens, after counting MCU, DCEU, Star Wars, X-Men and Conjuring. (I know there are few others still announced or in development or in production, but I only listed those universes which managed to show their connectivity through it’s films.) But only thing working against it was it’s overwhelming expectations and immense pressure of having a price tag of over $300m(budget + marketing). So people are already fuming over it, and waiting on their wings to slay this beast and call it a huge disappointment, if it gross well below $600m. Irrespective of that scenario, if people are enjoying the movie, was willing and interested to see more from this ‘beast’ universe, then it was already a crowning success, in it’s own term.

 8. This one was a mystery box. I had only one such mystery box last year, in the name of ‘Marvel’s Doctor Strange’, but luckily we…uh..I…have more than few this year. Lionsgate’s Power Rangers, arrives in theatres on March 24, 2017, this one got enough fuel to pull the distance as it has a established fan base, popularity among audiences and eye-candy trailer. It also features a very young, fresh faces with Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Becky G, Ludi Lin with Bill Hader, Bryan Cranston alongside Elizabeth Banks providing familiarity. But sometimes having enough fuel doesn’t even matter or may be in some cases it was all that matters. I quite can’t figure out where it belongs. With reported $105m budget, which was something quite good for any movie trying to make big on blockbuster landscape, so it’s become quite clear as it needs to make something close to $350m-$400m to be declared as a hit. More so even if it end up short, but if the ride was fun and everybody on board was in for another one or the next one, that’s what is of the prime importance for this franchise starter. We don’t need any space-science-level interpretation, to say or even declare that they were going to end up making a sequel out of this one. Come what may, it was me being realist here, so I am predicting a fine $320m global total. I called it a mystery because I am not sure how it was going to make it there or how far it will go from there. Presumably in US, with stiff competition from ‘Beast’, it will be difficult to top $100m there. Who knows it can even have a shot at $125m if it was good and people actually longing and waited for this franchise to arrive on silver screen. So my guess was $85m+ courtesy of $30m-$35m opening. Elsewhere, with some help from China, I think it will get close to $230m+ sparing any trouble. It kills me if I didn’t share this, well, my favorites from Power Rangers mythology were SPD and Wild Force. Yep, you got a fan over here!

Yeah, I know I technically didn’t gave out as many predictions as the title promised, but this was Part I of presumably four-part post and I still can’t get over the fact I missed six, ****! So, please be there for the next one, which will be out soon probably covering eight movies with names like Guardians Vol.2, Pirates 5, Wonder Woman and Fate of The Furious in the vicinity. I was already so excited to get there. See you all soon!

Legends: m stands for million; b for billion, NA for North America.
Sources: Wikipedia, Box Office Mojo.

Note: Given BO figures were provided as on Monday, March 13, 2017.
Re-post: Corrected few errors, filled in some details about the cast and prefixed respective studio’s name to all the films’ title. Otherwise, numbers and predictions stays the same.