Ender’s Game is the rare November sci-fi to vie for first place, and if you don’t count Megamind (which you really shouldn’t), then you’ve got to go all the way back to The Matrix Revolutions in 2003 to find a winner. Still, it’s definitely going to happen this weekend, the film is getting largely positive reviews, heck even Brad gave it a C+, and he’s a tough grader. Throw in PG-13 and you’ve got all the elements needed for a slight over-perform, I like $30.2 million, about ten percent above tracking.
Next up, the children’s animation Free Birds. This is about as oddly-themed as you can get for a family film, the synopsis indicates the goal is to travel back in time so that turkeys don’t become a Thanksgiving meal. Huh? First off, there’s zero international play there, then throw in the salient notion that if parents figure out the story prior, they may not even want to head toward the predictable, “Mommy, now I don’t want turkey for Thanksgiving!!!” children’s meltdown. So why am I going over tracking? Well, it’s been a month since the family dollar has gotten a new film, so they’ll (wait for it) flock to the box office to the tune of $18.5 million. After that though, once word gets out, this is going to be a goner.
Speaking of goners, Last Vegas is our final new wide release of the weekend. Is the comp here Red 2? The Family? Both those sound about right, leaving us not much to talk about, my $16.8 million is right between those two openings, though I’m again over tracking. I suppose I’m just counting on all those NFL bye weeks to come through for me.
About Time is our final call of the weekend, once again because it’s my Oracle and I’d rather talk about this film than the other newbies. About Time is getting 175 theaters, and is from the mind of Richard Curtis, who also wrote and directed Love Actually. It’s a film I enjoyed, though even now, weeks after seeing it, I’m not totally able to pinpoint why other than to say it was actively pleasant. Naturally, we’re lacking tracking for this little bugger, but I’m setting the number at $750,000 thousand. I’ve been winning vs. the crowd on the smaller titles recently, so I’ll be interested to see if y’all are bullish or bearish here.
And with that, now it’s your turn Internet, make your best predictions, give it your best shot, fire away!
Current Record: 24-49-3 against the wisdom of crowds.
Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
- Ender’s Game: $27.2 million
- Free Birds: $16 million
- Last Vegas: $16 million
- About Time: N/A
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
