Jigsaw Box Office Predictions

Welcome to the Screen Rant Box Office Prediction. Every week we put together an informal list of box office picks for the upcoming weekend to offer readers a rough estimate of how new releases (and returning holdovers) will perform in theaters.

For a recap of last week's box office totals, read our box office wrap-up from last weekend, and scroll to the bottom of this post to see how our picks matched up.

Full disclosure: Box office predictions are not an exact science. We acknowledge our picks may not always be correct. For the sake of offering a jumping off point for discussion, here are our picks for the weekend of October 27 - 29, 2017.

This weekend, Jigsaw opens in 2,941 locations, Suburbicon debuts in 2,046 theaters, and Thank You For Your Service plays in 2,054 locations.

#1 - Jigsaw

Coming in first should be Jigsaw, which is the latest installment in the Saw horror movie franchise. The series has long been one of the most lucrative in the genre, reaching its peak in the mid-2000s with the success of the second and third entries, which earned more than $80 million domestically. For a while, Saw was a Halloween tradition, with movies coming out seven consecutive years from 2004 to 2010. Jigsaw arrives seven years after Saw 3D, so Lionsgate is obviously hoping the extended break increased demand for more thrills and games from its titular villain. Sometimes, deliberately starving the market can have a positive effect.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Jigsaw will be a major moneymaker when it opens. Though the film will probably win the weekend due to lack of competition, it's only projected to earn $12.5 million in its first three days. This would be the lowest debut in the series to date, coming below even the $14.1 million of Saw VI. The culprit in this case is a mixed critical reception, as Jigsaw should play well to its niche of die-hard Saw fans, but not much else. And though there aren't any other new horror movies opening this weekend, holdovers like Happy Death Day and IT (both of which have earned better reviews) will likely be more appealing for casual audiences.

#2 - Boo! 2: A Madea Halloween

Look for last week's champ, Boo! 2: A Madea Halloween, to slide to second in its second weekend. The latest installment in Tyler Perry's trademark franchise played well for its target audience during its first three days, but it wasn't nearly as successful as its predecessor. Because of that, the sequel should start to fall off sooner rather than later, as interest is somewhat low.

#3 - Suburbicon

Our pick for third is Suburbicon (read our review), the new dark comedy from director George Clooney that stars an A-list cast consisting of Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, and Oscar Isaac. The film had all the pieces to be something entertaining, but the end result was an unfortunate misfire, and because word-of-mouth is so bad, Suburbicon will likely struggle to draw in sizable crowds. It definitely lacks the awards buzz these kinds of projects typically need to stay afloat during the fall months, and even with all the famous faces involved, casual audiences don't have much incentive to check it out. Estimates have it pegged for an opening weekend in the range of $5.5 million, which is well below the start for Clooney's 2011 political drama The Ides of March ($10.4 million) and World War II picture The Monuments Men ($22 million).

#4 - Geostorm

Coming in fourth should be Geostorm, one of the more notorious box office bombs of 2017. The disaster film scraped together $13.7 million in its opening weekend, but with the toxic reception, it'll drop very quickly. Some may opt to see it out of morbid curiosity to see how awful Geostorm truly is, but that won't be enough to save it from being a commercial failure.

#5 - Happy Death Day

Rounding out the top five should be Happy Death Day (read our review), which came in third last week with $9.3 million. With this being the last weekend before Halloween, moviegoers looking for a scare or two will probably be interested in what this film has to offer, considering it's better received than Jigsaw. Since Death Day has been playing for a couple weeks now, the demand won't entirely be there, but it should still stick around for another week.