The Internship would seem to be the favorite this weekend — they are definitely marketing the living tarnation out of it — but it’s also an extremely weak front-runner. There are certainly predictors out there taking The Purge for the win.
The first problem facing the new Vince Vaughn / Owen Wilson comedy is that it seems to be a big ol’ advertisement for Google (admittedly, unpaid). Issue number two is the tepid response to the trailer, I have yet to run across anyone who is hyped for this new release. Err, actually it’s not actually new, as they opened the film last Friday, for one showing, at limited theaters. I wasn’t able to find any numbers for that single show, though they likely wouldn’t have had much relevance, due to enforced scarcity.
The tracking for both new releases is also dismal, as you’ll see below, so I’ve boosted both new releases under the “well, the money has to go somewhere” theory, which is not my strongest. Even with my inflated numbers, this would be the lowest June weekend in a decade. I’ve slotted The Internship in at $24 million, but there’s enough wiggle room there to drive a city bus through considering it’s tracking at $11 million less.
If you were looking for where even more money could be spent, to bring this June weekend up to normal levels, look no further than The Purge. Tracking is low, but the horror/thriller genre is the most difficult to predict. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest to see the low-budget Ethan Hawke film pull the upset. My $15 million call is above tracking, but nowhere near a sure thing. Y’all are probably going to do better by going higher, though how much higher is where the art will come in.
Slightly new feature in prep for an even newer Box Office Orcale feature coming soon: I’m going to predict one indie limited theater count release. These usually have massive amounts of leeway, so feel free to get your dartboard out and predict alongside me.
This weekend we’ll tackle Dirty Wars, a new documentary about America’s covert operations. The highest performer among limited release documentaries I could find was An Inconvenient Truth, a film that put up $281,000 at four theaters ($70,000 per theater) back in 2006. You’d think Dirty Wars would be capable of such an opening, it also deals with an uncomfortable topic, but I think folks are far more prone to go in for the environment than war. Just look at Taxi to the Dark Side, a title that only managed $5,000 per theater for its opening weekend (two theaters). Our Dirty Wars is getting four theaters, and I like the per theater average to come in at $10,000 per theater, for an opening weekend of $40 thousand.
I’m not throwing out a number for Much Ado About Nothing, from our pal Joss Whedon, which is opening in five theaters in Los Angeles and New York, but you should feel free if you’ve got an instinct as to how it will perform.
Time to turn it over to the commenters, let’s get into The Internship, The Purge and Dirty Wars!
Current Streak: Seventeen weekends in a row (longest ever!).
Chances of Streak Being Broken: 75 percent.
Reason: It is difficult to feel good about the streak’s chance this weekend, too much oddity with the tracking and marketing.
Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
The Internship : $13 million
The Purge: $12 million
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
