Box Office Predictions: The Good Dinosaur, Creed, and Victor Frankenstein

A few days ago I wrote a post on Creed, a spin off of from the popular (and aged) Rocky franchise.  After talking about the film itself, it is time to take a look through the realm of the mystics and forecast just how it will do in the box office this weekend.  Along with it, Pixar's The Good Dinosaur and Fox's Victor Frankenstein are opening as well.

This is the first time that Pixar has released two films in the same year.  Back in the summer, Inside Out became an enormous success both critically and in the box office.  It scored 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and opened to $90 million.  One could guess that this will be another knock out of the park by Pixar, but there is a chance that it won't be quite as successful as Inside Out.

For starters, it is not fairing as well on Rotten Tomatoes, currently sitting at 81%.  Now, that does not necessarily mean anything for a family feature such as this, but it is interesting to note that the audience rating is pretty much the same, with 80%.  Twitter traffic is also relatively low for a Pixar film, with BoxOffice.com reporting that the Twitter activity mirrors that of Hotel Transylvania 2, which opened to $48 million.

I won't play the standard maths and say that it will translate proportionally to The Good Dinosaur, but I will say that all things considered, it looks like this will not be the holiday weekend breakout film that perhaps Disney was hoping for.  It is Thanksgiving weekend of a fall season that has seen a lot of movies flop, but I don't think that will be the case here.  I expect a decent opening weekend for Pixar's latest.

The Good Dinosaur Opening Weekend Prediction - $63 Million


Let's pretend that the name Sylvester Stallone is not attached to Creed.  His name has meant next to nothing in the box office the past number of years, so it would do a disservice to the potential of this movie to lean on his drawing power.  He does play a role in the film, but it is not by getting in the ring 'one last time,' and instead plays a mentor, but in a movie that looks better than when he mentored Tommy 'Machine' Gunn in the fifth and cartoonish Rocky movie.

This time around, the story is less about Rocky Balboa, and more about the son of Apollo Creed, Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan).  It is hard to base any interest from the general public off of Jordan's name, and let's try to forget for the moment that he was in this summer's (less than) Fantastic Four.  Critics know just how talented he is, and mainstream audiences are about to find out.

Right now it is boasting a tremendous 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and has seen a very effective and emotionally stirring promotional campaign.  Audiences are loving it (giving it 96% on RT), and it is that kind of appreciation that I think could turn into good word of mouth that will give this film a boost over the course of the weekend, allowing it to exceed expectations.

Creed Opening Weekend Prediction - $30 Million


And last we have Victor Frankenstein, a movie whose trailers make it difficult to take the film's chances seriously.  Having stylized movies is a risk, and this one may not pay off at all.  Audiences are currently liking it more than critics, but I doubt that will help out the film.  Stylized reimagining may have worked for Sherlock Holmes, but something tells me that the character of Holmes is much more intriguing to the public than that of Frankenstein.

Victor Frankenstein Opening Weekend Prediction - $7.5 Million