Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues seems like a surefire winner, though the tracking looks a little lower than I was expecting. I’ve got it cracking the $40 million mark, but admittedly this is generally a down weekend at the box office as folks handle last-minute shopping. But I sense something — a buzz, a national mood, whatever that intangible thing is that makes me want to go high. One more thing, the opening Wednesday is looking like a healthy $9 million, so the weekend would have to be stronger, wouldn’t it? I say, “Yep”.
The other wide release is Walking with Dinosaurs which looks to be dead on arrival with a paltry $9 million tracking number. The good news is they’ll have very little competition amongst the people who have already seen Frozen, but that’s a very low number to open with, even on this slow weekend. Personally, I thought it was a solid little family film, but finding traction for non-sequel entertainment is proving tough these days. Hopefully the budget was low, though CGI dinos can’t come that cheap.
Next, we’re going to look at two Academy Awards expansions, starting with American Hustle. This is now being marketed as a comedy, at least in the commercials and according to the Golden Globes. I’ll opine that’s an odd categorization, it’s only a comedy in the sense that the entire spectrum of the human condition is a comedy (which means I don’t think it’s a comedy). Still, there’s some desire to see this one, especially if audience members think it will be all laughs and Jennifer Lawrence in the bedroom. I’m going above tracking here too, at $18.8 million but I’m worried about the CinemaScore.
Lastly, Saving Mr. Banks. This is more of a King’s Speech financial play, the highest that one got was $11 million over a weekend, but it still earned nearly $140 million domestically. That’s a tremendous multiplier, unheard of in this day and age, and it happened because of a continual slow burn. Mr. Banks is being less patient, going wide for the second weekend, but they’ll see a similar result, at least in terms of that “big” number.
That’s all I’ve got for this weekend, hope y’all have a Merry Christmas!
Current Record: 36-59-1 against the wisdom of crowds.
Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
- Anchorman: The Legend Continues: $32 Million
- Walking with Dinosaurs: $9 Million
- American Hustle: $17.8 Million
- Saving Mr. Banks: $11.4 Million
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
