‘Thor’ Stays Atop Box Office While ‘Orient Express,’ ‘Daddy’s Home 2’ Fight for No. 2

This week’s new releases are neck-and-neck with estimated $27 million openings

Thor: Ragnarok banner Disney
Thor Ragnarok banner

“Thor: Ragnarok” will have no trouble staying atop the box office charts in its second weekend, as it is estimated to bring in at least $54 million after making $18.2 on its second Friday, pushing its domestic total over $200 million and its global total over $600 million.

By comparison, its week-to-week drop-off of 50-56 percent is much lower than that of “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which opened this past July to $117 million and then dropped 62 percent to $44 million in its second weekend.

Meanwhile, this week’s two new releases, Paramount’s “Daddy’s Home 2” and Fox’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” are in a neck-and-neck race for the No. 2 spot after each made $10.8 million on Friday. Both films are currently estimated to make around $27 million in their openings, slightly above tracker expectations. That’s a better result for Kenneth Branagh’s murder mystery than the holiday comedy sequel, as “Murder” was made on a $55 million budget compared to $69 million for “Daddy’s Home 2.”

The good news for “Daddy’s Home 2” is that even though it was panned by critics with a 16 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, it had a better CinemaScore grade than its predecessor with an A- from opening night audiences, compared to a B+ for the first “Daddy’s Home.” It’s also the second-highest opening of 2017 for Paramount behind the $44 million made by the underperforming tentpole “Transformers: The Last Knight.” “Murder on the Orient Express” got a B on CinemaScore and a 59 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Holdovers complete the top five, as “A Bad Moms Christmas” is estimated to make $12 million in its second weekend for a 10-day total of around $40 million, while “Jigsaw” finishes in a distant fifth with an estimated $3.5 million in its third weekend.

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