Will Smith and Margot Robbie headline the new con artist flick Focus that is widely expected to win this weekend’s weak box office race, even without the head start the film received at late Thursday night showings last night.
Warner Bros. is reporting that Focus pulled in $900,000 from Thursday showings. The R-rated film and departure for Smith from his typical flashy blockbuster fare is tracking to wrap up the weekend somewhere in the range of $20 million. That should top the past two weekends’ reigning box office champ, Fifty Shades of Grey.
Robbie is quickly making a name for herself in Hollywood after a splashy debut in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street alongside Leonardo DiCaprio. Her next role as villainous and obnoxious Harley Quinn in Warner’s DC Comics-based Suicide Squad will make her even more desirable for producers to snatch up for high profile roles.
Smith’s last hit in front of the camera was Men in Black 3 back in 2012, though even that failed to meet expectations. You have to go all the way back to 2008 and Hancock for the last film starring Smith that overachieved at the box office.
Focus is joined this weekend by another newcomer, the horror flick The Lazarus Effect starring Olivia Wilde and Mark Duplass as foolish researchers trying to resurrect the dead. The Lazarus Effect also played in select locations late last night and got a head start on its weekend total with $350,000. Look for its final three-day opening weekend tally to fall somewhere around $13 million.
With the steep 73 percent drop that Fifty Shades of Grey endured last weekend following a huge Valentine’s Day weekend debut, expect this weekend’s box office totals to fall well short of the same weekend last year when The Lego Movie and Non-Stop starring Liam Neeson were putting up solid numbers.
