Will Smith Only Topped Box Office Because 'Fifty Shades' Bottomed Out

There has been plenty of debate among box office pundits about whether or not Will Smith's Focus was a success by virtue of its $18.69 million debut weekend. It's much lower than the standard Will Smith star vehicle, but the con artist caper (co-starring Margot Robbie) was not the conventional fantasy-laden, FX-filled, PG-13 adventure film. Now having said that, Will Smith became the biggest movie star in the world precisely because he was able to get a wide variety of genre films to boffo opening weekends. But putting that aside for a moment, some of the conversation has focused on the fact that Will Smith's Focus (Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.) in-fact topped the box office last weekend, and that in itself is cause for celebration or merit. Last weekend is as good an example as any as to why weekend box office rank is a mostly arbitrary figure. To wit, if Fifty Shades of Grey (Universal/Comcast Corp.) had anything resembling legs past its opening weekend, it likely would have been the top film over the last three weekends instead of just its debut frame over Presidents Day. Focus being on top was less about Focus and more about the weakness of its competition.

Fifty Shades of Grey was the top film over its debut weekend, earning a scorching $93 million over its first four days of domestic release, including $85.1m over the Fri-Sun frame. The film dropped 73.9% in its second weekend, earning just $22.25m over its second weekend. That 73.9% drop was the biggest drop ever for a film on more than 3,500 screens and second only to Friday the 13th (-80% in weekend two also off of President's Day weekend) for releases on 3,000 or more screens. Heck, it was the eighth-biggest drop for a film on more than 2,000 screens. Point being, had the film dropped a somewhat more "reasonable" 60%, that second weekend would have been $34m on its second weekend. Had it dropped by another 45%, it would have ended its third weekend with $18.7m, which would have been just enough to give Focus a run for its money. Now obviously if apples were oranges they'd be called oranges. But the fact remains that if Fifty Shades of Grey had shown any real staying power past its opening weekend it may-well have dominated its first three weekends instead of its first two. And then, had Fifty Shades pulled a $20m+ third weekend, would the exact same $18.69m that Focus earned be looked at in a more negative light purely due to arbitrary rankings?

But let's say that instead SpongeBob: Sponge Out of Water (Paramount/Viacom Inc.) opened the first weekend in February it instead drops the weekend after President's Day. Presuming it makes the same $55.3m weekend, its respective 43% second weekend drop would have given it $31m, which would have been more than enough to best Focus last weekend. But animated films, even those that open big, tend to have better legs than most films, especially fan-centric franchise films. The crux of the matter is that what film tops the box office in a given weekend is generally a matter of what the biggest film that is new on a given weekend happens to be. Yes there are "slow" weekends, such as the post-Presidents Day weekend where The Duff and McFarland, USA earned $11m on their respective debuts. Yes there are films that open so huge and so far above the competition (think The Avengers or The Dark Knight) that it takes them a weekend or two to drop to where the next big release will overtake them in the rankings. Or perhaps you have a mega movie that opens during an otherwise slow period, say the last weekend in March (The Hunger Games) or the first weekend in April (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), which is able to top the box office purely due to the lack of big-scale competition.

I'm reasonably sure that Furious 7 can take a nose dive in its second weekend and still probably top every weekend in April save for the potentially big debut of Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (remember, Paul Blart: Mall Cop debuted with $31 million over its Fri-Sun debut in January 2009). If it drops steadily after its opening weekend but remains on top until Avengers: Age of Ultron on May 1st, it will be less about Furious 7's staying power and more about the lack of competition. Had Focus opened against Fifty Shades of Grey or against SpongeBob 2 or even a weekend earlier than it did, or had Fifty Shades of Grey had something resembling staying power past is first four days, the Will Smith/Margot Robbie film likely would have made that same $18.69m (give or take weather conditions) and ended up ranked number two for the weekend. Would that have automatically made the same film, at the same cost and with the same opening weekend result an automatic failure? It shouldn't obviously. And Focus's ultimate box office fate will be determined in the weeks ahead in terms of how much it makes here and abroad (it earned around $13m overseas last weekend). We don't yet know if Will Smith's new movie is a hit. But its success or failure has nothing to do with whether it topped the box office over its first three days of release. That's just a matter of scheduling.