Current Streak: 0 Straight Weekends #1 Predicted Correctly
Threat Level to Streak Being Broken: None.
Reason: This week is a slam dunk because there’s simply no way a film about alcoholism beats a Disney movie with broad family appeal. It’s all over, finito, game, set … well, you get the idea. Let’s break it down!
Wreck-It Ralph is an overwhelming favorite to win the weekend, even though I’ve yet to see MTC tracking numbers on it. A plus $40 million opening certainly isn’t out of the question, but I’m going just slightly under and that $150 million dollar production budget looms large.
Still, we can expect this to do something around half a billion worldwide, especially because it will have nice legs due to a likely solid CinemaScore and no real competition (at least domestically) until November 21 brings us Rise of the Guardians.
Denzel Washington also has a film out, which is always worth considering, but in this case there’s a solid chance Flight won’t have broad appeal. Brad noted as much in his review, it’s safe to say that this one will have a tough time gaining traction given the adult material and R-rating. It’s also spotting Wreck-It Ralph nearly 2,000 theaters, just in case you were looking for a reason to pick David over Goliath. Not this time, Davey, maybe next go round.
In approximately 1,800 theaters, I’ve got Flight bringing in $10.8 million.
Further down the board we find a little film called The Man with the Iron Fists. Quentin Tarantino is “presenting” it, and RZA directed it, but other than the marketing material it’s tough to tell the quality of film.
As of press time, exactly zero reviews had been posted to RottenTomatoes (those of us here in Seattle weren’t invited to screen it), and it’s also getting less than 2,000 theaters, which leads me to believe it’s not the sort of movie that scoops up at the box office. Naturally, I reserve the right to be wrong, perhaps Universal is just slow-playing all of us prognosticators, but I can’t go any higher than $5.4 million.
Other compelling storylines this weekend include the Cloud Atlas holdover number, which is likely to be punishing given that “C” CinemaScore. Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is also starring a brutal drop as most viewers had to be in the younger demographic and seem to have turned out last Friday and that’s it. Such is the way of video game films … or at least the adapted ones that aren’t meant for families.
Enough dawdling, how say you? Calls on all three new releases will be pondered, and whomever is closest can bathe themselves in Sunday wrap-up glory. Predictions away!
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
