Welcome to the Box Office Oracle–where new movies are pitted against each other for box office supremacy and only one can claim victory. Each week, I will be doing a quick box office prediction for all wide new releases. Sorry, obscure indie films I’ve never heard of, but you aren’t going to be discussed here unless you become big.

This is also something I’m going to keep as free of “controversy” if I can. This means that if, I don’t know, Jon Voight is voicing an evil government agent talking bear in a DreamWorks movie, I’m not going to make a bunch of Trump jokes. If a Tom Cruise actioner comes out, I’m not going to make a bunch of Scientology cracks. You get the idea. I want for this to be kept fun and simple.

So, without any further discussion, let’s go into this weekend’s two big releases, Annabelle Comes Home and Yesterday.

Annabelle Comes Home

In case you didn’t have your evil doll fix from Child’s Play last weekend, you can now see whatever wacky shenanigans Annabelle has been up to lately. Annabelle Comes Home is the fourth film to feature the titular character if we count the original Conjuring  which opened back in 2013, and since then the franchise has been pretty lucrative for Warner Bros., even as it goes up and down with critics. Fortunately, Annabelle Comes Home has a great-for-the-genre 60% “fresh” score over at RT–the same as Child’s Play, natch–which could help this perform more like Annabelle: Creation in terms of legs.

Or not. The studio has made the curious decision  to open this movie over a very crowded period in an attempt to profit off the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. Annabelle did open to a decent $7 million yesterday (which includes $3 million from Tuesday night previews), but why not just wait and open this in August instead? There’s been something of a surplus of horror flicks lately (something I’ll get into more next week with the release of Midsommer), so it does feel like some money might be being left on the table here. But I digress. Look for Annabelle to come home to the tune of a $16 million weekend.

Why Your Fortune Cookie Tells You To Go: Annabelle’s proven to be quite a dependable little demon doll when it comes to providing solid scares; 2017’s Annabelle: Creation was a pretty frightening thrill ride.
Why Your Fortune Cooking Tells You To Stay Away: I mean, there are a lot of toy movies in theaters right now, okay?
Today’s Lucky Lotto Numbers: $16 million opening; $68 million finish.

Yesterday

Today in “high concept” cinema, we have Yesterday, a quirky comedy in which a young man is somehow whisked away to a world where The Beatles never existed. Seeing an opportunity, he becomes rich and famous by “writing” their songs. This is the sort of film that has potential to be quite funny and clever, but reviews are decidedly “okay” on this one so far, with a current RT score of 62% “fresh,” and it might be in need of help!

The good news for it is that the trailer has sparked a fair amount of interest, and there is some potential for a sleeper hit here. The problem is that Spider-Man: Far From Home opens next Tuesday, so unless this film breaks out this weekend, audiences might be quick to let it be. There is literally anywhere this one could go (as it’s playing in 1,000 fewer venues than Annabelle, it’s not going to end up beating that film), but a $9 million opening sounds about right.

Why Your Fortune Cookie Tells You To Go: Danny Boyle–the director of Yesterday–also helmed Slumdog Millionaire, which won eight Academy Awards and was a gradual box office smash.
Why Your Fortune Cookie Tells You To Stay Away: Spidey arrives in five days. You might want to save your movie money. And the comedy looks like it might be at risk of being a lot of “Man, doesn’t modern music just suck so much?” jokes, which can get tired very quickly.
Today’s Lucky Lotto Numbers: $9 million opening; $34 million finish.

Other fun stuff…

* Needless to say, neither newcomer this weekend should be able to dethrone Toy Story 4.

* And speaking of Toy Story 4, the main problem with projections claiming it would make $165 million or more was that they were comparing it to Pixar’s Incredibles 2, rather than the grosses of the previous Toy Story films. Even my more conservative-by-comparison prediction ended up being a bit high.

* In 2007’s Across the Universe, The Beatles also don’t appear to exist, but everyone sings their music anyway.

* Yesterday, the OT was flooded with jokes about Yesterday. Oh, how I believe in that.

* Okay, let me get this out of my system: Imagine if Yesterday everyone needed Help, but today they decided to Let It Be and got by with A Little Help from My Friends. Lucy in the Sky! I am a Walrus! This joke was a failure.

* The episode of the original Powerpuff Girls “Meet the Beat-Alls” is something I recommend to everyone on the planet. It’s nothing but Beatles jokes, and it’s hilarious.

* Why the fuck was Annabelle made to be so creepy? Like, seriously, what parent would ever buy that doll for their child?

* The timeline for the Conjuring movies is all over the place. This appears to at least be a quasi-sequel to the first film? Or maybe it’s another prequel?

* What will you guys be doing this weekend? Evil dolls? Talking toys? Evil dolls and talking toys? Sound off in the comments!