Thursday Update: Following up on yesterday’s forecast, we’ve revised this weekend’s outlook for both new releases and Bad Boys for Life in the table below. Regarding the openers, The Gentlemen is continuing to show encouraging signs of drawing a solid male audience this weekend, while The Turning is moving in the opposite direction as measurable trends gravitate more toward to the lower end of similar horror releases — including underwhelming reviews.

Wednesday Report: The calm after the holiday storm will begin to set in this weekend, but there’s still good news for a box office market that’s currently up 5 percent year-to-date versus last year thanks in large part to breakout weekends from Bad Boys for Life and 1917 over the past two frames.

This weekend, two wide openers and one moderate release enter the fray. STX and director Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen will aim to rally fans of the director with his return to the hard-R, adult-driven crime comedy that shaped his early career with films like Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. The film has already earned $18.4 million overseas (including $10.4 million in the United Kingdom and $7.2 million in Australia), a healthy start for a film that only cost the studio $7 million to distribute.

We expect The Gentlemen will cater strictly to an older male audience, and while it may not generate quite the same excitement in North America as its UK home base, positive reviews indicate the film is on track for a healthy debut stateside. Opening in 2,000 locations could hinder it from debuting in the realm of past male-driven January films like Den of Thieves or Ritchie’s own The Man from UNCLE, but an opening in our expected range would be a generally positive result for the title.

Universal offers up another debut for a third straight week with The Turning, a PG-13 horror film catering to young female audiences. As always, original horror titles in this vein are notoriously challenging to forecast — with examples ranging from last-minute breakouts to box office duds. Currently, our models are trending in between the performances of recent genre pics Underwater and The Grudge.

Again, as a low-budget film, The Turning doesn’t need to reach extreme heights, but it does face the slight challenge of representing the third horror entry to already release in the young new year. On the plus side, none of those really stood out among the target crowd.

Roadside Attractions will also release The Last Full Measure this weekend, though the studio has only confirmed it will be a “moderate” release and an estimated location count was not made available at the time of this report. A wide enough debut could land it a debut in the top ten if it draws strong attention from military families and blue collar regions outside major cities.

As for the aforementioned Bad Boys for Life and 1917, look for the former to easily hold onto the top spot in its second weekend. The latter war epic will likely be in close proximity to Dolittle for the second and third spots. While there’s a comedown naturally expected from last weekend’s holiday-boosted performances, the positive news is that a lack of NFL playoffs this weekend may help ease many of those declines.

Opening Weekend Ranges

Top 10 vs. Last Year

Boxoffice projects this weekend’s top ten films will increase approximately 28 to 33 percent from the same weekend last year, which was also one week after MLK Day. That frame saw The Kid Who Would Be King and Serenity debut as part of an overall $73.8 million top ten aggregate.

Weekend Forecast

Forecasts subject to change as location counts are finalized before Friday

The chart above excludes releases and potential expansions from limited and platform films

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The post Weekend Box Office Forecast: <em>Bad Boys for Life</em> to Lead Again as <em>The Gentlemen</em> and <em>The Turning</em> Debut (Thursday Update) appeared first on Boxoffice.