Weekend projections: One of Them Days wins 3-day weekend, Mufasa set to win 4-day weekend

There’s a three-way pile-up at the top of the box office chart this MLK weekend, and two films look likely to come out as winners. One of Them Days is riding great reviews and word-of-mouth to a very narrow projected Friday-to-Sunday victory, while Mufasa: The Lion King will almost certainly claim the title for the full long weekend. Wolf Man is trailing in third place.

Here are the official studio projections for the three-day weekend (click the image for a full chart of all films reporting so far):

The race between One of Them Days and Mufasa: The Lion King is so close that Mufasa could yet win the three-day weekend. It will almost certainly draw in a bigger audience tomorrow thanks to the holiday, so a four-day win seems certain for Disney.

Whether it finishes first or second, this is an excellent result for One of These Days. If it does top the chart, it’ll be the first completely original film to do so since Red One back in November. The last comedy to do so was The Lost City, which opened nearly three years ago. To be fair, it took The Lost City $30 million to open on top, and $11.6 million is a very low total for a chart-topper. Civil War was the last film to top the chart with less than $12 million, back in April last year, when it earned $11.2 million in its second weekend. But One of These Days wasn’t expensive to make, and should book a solid profit once home video and streaming numbers come in.

The debut for Wolf Man is quite disappointing, and it won’t be helped by mediocre reviews. This looks like another failed attempt by Universal to launch their Monsters franchise.

– Studio weekend projections

– All-time top-grossing movies in North America

– All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com