Friday Report: Audiences Pay a 'Visit' to 'The Perfect Guy'

     Two new wide releases, M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Visit' and Sony's 'The Perfect Guy', rejuvenated the box office yesterday. Both are PG-13 rated thrillers that audiences generally liked, and taking the top two spots should be absolutely no problem.
     'The Perfect Guy', the new $12-million romance-thriller from Sony and Screen Gems, took in an excellent, better-than-expected $9.95 million on Friday, even with terrible reviews (33% on Rotten Tomatoes). That figure bests last September's 'No Good Deed''s opening day ($8.8m) and just $1.25 million shy from 'Obsessed''s $11.2 million opening. Word-of-mouth is positive, with an 'A-' on CinemaScore. If it plays similar to those two films, it will wind up anywhere from $24-$26 million.
     'Perfect Guy' wasn't the only winner though. M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, 'The Visit', nabbed a very impressive $9.2 million worth of box office receipts. The horror comedy from Universal cost just $5 million, so whether or not the film has legs going into the weekend, 'Visit' is undoubtedly a major success.  Critics and audiences alike have also enjoyed the movie more than Shyamalan's previous efforts (62% critics' score on RT and 67% on Flixter). It outperformed 'Devil''s $4.8 million as well as this year's 'Sinister 2''s $4.7 million.'Visit' will probably have identical holding power, so a debut of $23-$24 million is a lock.
     'War Room' had to settle for third, taking in a still-solid $2.16 million (off only 7.3% from last Friday). With strong holding power partially due to great word-of-mouth (90% Flixter score), a $7.5-$7.8 million third weekend should be in its sights.
     Last week's sleeper hit 'A Walk in the Woods' grossed $1.46 million, a respectable 33.7% decline from last Friday. A $4.5-$5 million second weekend would be likely for the R-rated comedy starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte.
     $28-million rap drama hit 'Straight Outta Compton' made $1.2 million yesterday, which is off 46.1% from last time. So far, 'Compton' has been experiencing unimpressive holds, but still remains as one of 2015's biggest films. $3-$4 million should be likely for 'Compton'.
     Debuting in ninth place, faith-based drama '90 Minutes in Heaven' opened to a modest $760k. Obviously, opening so close after 'War Room' stole some of its breakout potential, and negative reviews (20% on Rotten Tomatoes) as well as mixed word of mouth (59% on Flixter) may have also had an impact. A debut of around $2 million is possible.

Weekend Forecast

1. 'The Perfect Guy' - $25.9 million

2. 'The Visit' - $23.5 million

3. 'War Room' - $7.6 million

4. 'A Walk in the Woods' - $4.9 million

5. 'Straight Outta Compton' - $3.7 million

-   '90 Minutes in Heaven' - $2.1 million