The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies will open weaker than the first two in the franchise. My reasoning is based on the trend-line from Unexpected Journey to Smaug, I really think this fandom is down to the diehards. There will be plenty of drive-by traffic, but this is no longer an “event” movie. The flaw in this logic is that Five Armies had a bigger Wednesday than the second film, $11.2 million vs $8.8 million – but couldn’t that also be the last of the “real” fans? Probably wise to go well over my prediction of $54.3 million, but how much higher can you stomach with this lemon?
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb is headed the other way, getting stronger with each Ben Stiller commercial. $39 million is nothing to scoff at, and this will bring in more family dollars in a big way. I can’t go higher than $13k per theater though, and it’s spotting Hobbit nearly 1,000 theaters.
Annie is the final big wide release, and this was the hardest prediction on the board for me. What do you do with a classic family musical? These days they are mostly appearing on television. $27.8 million will only take 3 million tickets sold, and even that number would only be the 35th largest opening of the last year. It’s just difficult to predict three breakout films this weekend after how down the year has been on sequels.
Exodus: God and Kings is a relatively easy call at $10.6 million. That represents a 56 percent drop, and that might be kind. I mean who the hell wants to see this anymore? It wasn’t good to begin with, and it faces brutal competition this weekend. It’s going to sink like a stone.
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
