The Wolverine is the heavy favorite this weekend, coming to town with 3,700 theaters and a tracking number over $70 million. Hugh Jackman‘s sixth go-round as Wolverine (right?) started Wednesday morning at 74 percent on RottenTomatoes, but it’s dipped seven percent as of this writing. Will it hang on to the coveted “fresh” rating? And what to make of word-of-mouth?
You can read my review of Wolverine right here, but the smarter predictor won’t pay as much attention to the reviews and take a closer look at precedent. Are we looking at X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a film that Jackman has since distanced himself from, even though it opened at $85 million? Or is it more along the lines of Thor and Captain America, titles which managed only $65 million? There seems to be no end to superhero momentum, see Man of Steel and Iron Man 3, but as we steam toward August we may see some fatigue.
My prediction? A bit of a downward spiral, The Wolverine stalling out at $66 million. But it will do gangbusters overseas.
As there aren’t any other new 3,000+ theater releases this weekend, let’s turn our attention to Fruitvale Station. The first mystery is precisely how many theaters will it get? Information was scarce on Wednesday evening, so it may behoove you to do a little Googling prior to your prediction, but balance that against the need for speed – because the early picks are going to pick up points here, there’s not enough of a spread number-wise to allow for late predictions to score. I’m going under tracking with a dartboard $4.5 million.
The Conjuring is the first holdover we’ll predict, it should be interesting because horror drop-offs are all over the board. Films like Paranormal Activity 2 dipped nearly 60 percent, whereas Sinister only fell 50 percent, and The Grudge managed to only drop 44 percent. I’m much more bullish on this title, it’s still the most acclaimed wide release on the board. I predict a 47 percent bleed, leading to a $22.2 million total.
Finally, Turbo. Animations get a much nicer deal in their second weekend, and this is the very definition of “starting from zero, got nothing to lose”. In the box office wars, you generally don’t take a huge hit if your first weekend was underwhelming, as without front-loading a more natural regression takes place. The number will be extremely close to $11.9 million, the animations continue to troll the waters for family dollars.
Current Record: 5-14-1 against the wisdom of crowds. Y’all are good.
Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
- The Wolverine: $72 million
- Fruitvale Station: $5 million
How say you? Get your calls in and seek the glory!
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
