Friday Report: 'Transporter' and 'Walk' Unlikely to Refuel Labor Day Weekend
Labor Day weekend 2015 is looking a bit peaked, that is if you're looking for big numbers from either of this weekend's new releases—The Transporter Refueled or A Walk in the Woods. The film getting the wider release of the two is the Transporter reboot, which sees Ed Skrein stepping into Jason Statham's shoes. Statham last played the character in 2008's Transporter 3, which opened with $12 million, the second highest opening within the original Transporter franchise.

It's unlikely Refueled will enjoy similar success after bringing in a soft $375,000 from approximately 2,200 screens on Thursday night. Even though it expands into 3,434 theaters this weekend, it might be expecting a bit too much from the EuropaCorp release to even match the $8.3m Hitman: Agent 47 made only a couple weekends ago. A weekend closer to $7 million seems much more likely.

A Walk in the Woods, the fourth release from Broad Green Features, isn't going nearly as wide as Refueled. It expands into 1,960 theaters this weekend after opening in 1,849 this past Wednesday, where it topped the box office with a $1.169 million opening. This was enough to give it the number one slot, a position it quickly relinquished the following day to three-time weekend box office champ Straight Outta Compton. Walk has a "B" CinemaScore from opening day audiences, and it could serve as a modest hit for Broad Green. Estimates place it somewhere around $6-7 million over the holiday weekend, in a good bit of counter-programming at the close of summer.

One of the more interesting titles to keep an eye on will be War Room, which opened with $11.3 million and a second place position last week. This weekend TriStar is going even wider, adding an additional 391 theaters for a total of 1,526. The first comparison that comes to mind is 2008's similarly faith-based release Fireproof, which dropped 41.7% in its second weekend, but only added 13 theaters from its opening and never found its way into more than 905 theaters. A better comparison is 2014's Heaven is for Real, which added 288 theaters in its second weekend and ended up dropping only 36.3 percent.

With these three films all hunting weekend numbers in the $7-8 million range it seems unlikely Straight Outta Compton will make it four weekends in a row at #1 in what could be one of the worst Labor Day weekends in some time. Interesting, considering Transporter 2 once held the Labor Day opening weekend record back in 2002.

Getting back to Compton, fellow Universal 2015 release, Furious 7, was the last to four-peat and before that it was Lionsgate's The Hunger Games all the way back in 2012. Should Compton want to compete for the three-day crown it would require a sub-40 percent holdover. Though that seems unlikely, it remains a strong contender for the four-day holiday top spot as it has been holding well on Mondays and the holiday could propel it to the top.

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Previous Labor Day Weekend Results

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