Current Streak: 12 Straight Weekends #1 Predicted Correctly
Threat Level to Streak: Medium
Reason: Has a CBS film ever won the weekend? Predicting something that’s never happened never feels like a sure thing …
The streak of box-office ineptitude continues as the top twelve films likely won’t clear $67 million this weekend. Factor in a staggering eight films being separated by a mere $1 million in receipts and you’ve got a recipe for calamity. But calamity is exactly what we thrive on ’round these parts, so let’s break this thing down!
The Words should have enough oomph to carry Bradley Cooper to his fifth box office crown (if you count Valentine’s Day, both Hangover films and Limitless). Because truly, it won’t take much, a silly $4,000 per theater will be plenty. At $1,333 a day you’re looking at a mere $200 per showing, or 25 tickets sold for each time slow. That is not many tickets. In fact, no one could blame you, if you wanted to get away from people, for heading to the #1 movie in the land this weekend.
Moving down the list, we find The Possession in solid shape, having already made $28 million on a production budget around half of that number. Lawless is likely in rougher shape, as it looked like at least a $40 million movie, and it only stands at $16 million earned with very little hope of a strong international push. John Hillcoat is clearly a talented director, and you could make the case that his films keep making more cash each time he attempts a new one, but he also has yet to deliver a truly bankable product. Ah well.
The rest of this motley crew, an assorted collection of misfit toys, shouldn’t do much this weekend. It may very well end up being the very first weekend The Dark Knight is missing from the top ten, only a billion dollars after it was released. It will be missed.
How say you on the top ten or new releases?
You can attempt predictions on The Words or The Cold Light of Day, but I’d go low if I were you. One more thing – Brad will be giving due credit this time around, he chalks not doing so last weekend up to Toronto International Film Festival fever and a Labor Day vacation (slacker!). So predictions away!
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article. All predictions are for the three-day, not the four-day, weekend.
