Box-Office Preview: Tyler Perry’s ‘Boo 2’ to Scare Off Big-Budget ‘Geostorm’

Tyler Perry’s comedy-horror sequel Boo 2! A Madea Halloween is tipped to win a crowded race at the box office this weekend with a $20 million-plus debut.

Perry, who directed the Lionsgate release, reprises his role as Madea in the follow-up to Boo! A Madea Halloween, which launched to $28.5 million in October 2016. This time out, Madea, Aunt Bam (Cassi Davis), Viv (Chandra Currelley) and Hattie (Patrice Lovely) take a vacation to a campground with their family members, unaware that the grounds are haunted by monsters, goblins and boogeymen.

Boo 2 should have no trouble scaring off the competition, including Warner Bros. and Skydance Media’s big-budget Geostorm.

Marking Independence Day producer Dean Devlin’s feature directorial debut, Geostorm is tracking to open in the $10 million to $12 million range, a dismal start for a film that cost at least $120 million to produce. The troubled production required $15 million in significant reshoots, with producer Jerry Bruckheimer brought aboard to help.

In the long-delayed disaster epic, the world’s climate change control system — a network of satellites built to prevent natural disasters and keep the human population safe — goes haywire, and a satellite engineer (Gerard Butler) must fix the problem before a worldwide geostorm is unleashed. Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Andy Garcia and Zazie Beetz also star.

Geostorm, which may also have a hard time topping holdover Happy Death Day, isn’t being screened in advance for critics, nor will it hold Thursday-night previews.

Universal and Working Title’s thriller The Snowman, starring Michael Fassbender, also has a chance of matching Geostorm. The Snowman is based on the Jo Nesbo best-seller of the same name about a determined detective on the trail of a serial killer. Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer and J.K. Simmons also star in the film, which was directed by Tomas Alfredson.

A wild card at the box office this weekend is Only the Brave, from Black Label Media and Sony. The film tells the tale of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, who battled against the 2013 Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona. Earlier this week, Vice President Mike Pence attended a screening of Only the Brave, which stars Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, Jennifer Connelly, Taylor Kitsch and Miles Teller. Tracking suggests the movie will open in the $7 million range, but there’s room for upside.

Elsewhere, faith-based distributor Pure Fix finally releases Same Kind of Different as Me, starring Greg Kinnear as an international arts dealer who befriends a homeless man (Dijmon Hounsou) in order to rescue his marriage. Renee Zellweger, Jon Voight and Olivia Holt also star. Paramount, which made the film adaptation of the book of the same name, was originally set to open Same Kind of Different as Me in April 2016, but later dropped the film, with Pure Flix picking up the rights. Tracking suggests the pic will open in the $4 million range.

The Snowman and Same Kind of Different as Me also weren’t screened in advance for reviewers.

New offerings at the specialty box office include Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions’ Wonderstruck, directed by Todd Haynes and starring Oakes Fegley, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams and Millicent Simmonds.