Guardians of the Galaxy should take the weekend by a healthy $40 million or so, a route of galactic proportions. The bad news is there’s not much in the way of precedent here, unless you want to count all of Marvel, but this sci-fi comedy actioner doesn’t seem to be of this world (sorry, I’ll stop).
Is it similar to The Avengers, which is to say an ensemble feel good? No, of course not, that’s too huge a marketing budget and franchise. Well then, how about Serenity, a film it does actually closely resemble? Nope, that’s no good either, awareness of Guardians of the Galaxy is through the roof by comparison. Now throw in the glowing reviews and this looks like a sneaky over-performer against tracking.
Still, I’m wary. We’ve only seen eight movies all year open higher than my prediction, and there’s no sequel bump in play (five were sequels). I realize there’s always some mystery to the weekend, but I could see this title coming in anywhere from ten million lower to twenty million over. Personally, I’ll be sticking near the life-vest of tracking at $65.5 million.
The other new wide release of the weekend is Get On Up. The news isn’t as great here, clearly, and I’m throwing in 2,200 theaters only because the reported 2000+ isn’t very specific. Pointing to Ray, Walk the Line and Great Balls of Fire makes the most sense, and the trend is always the same – adult musician biopics never open big. The tracking says $13 million, but I like the upward momentum to $16.5 million as this is a clear market differentiator.
We’re going with holdover numbers next, starting with Hercules. The little myth that could received a frankly astonishing B+ CinemaScore, I can only guess that people expected stupidity and then lapped it up once they were granted it. Oddly, I’m still calling for a 60 percent dip. I just don’t see who heads out to the theater to see this instead of Guardians of the Galaxy and the numbers for 2011’s Conan and this year’s Legend of Hercules (seriously, that was THIS year) support my claim. $11.9 million is the call, and I plan to hit it right on the nose.
Finally, I’d like to talk about Lucy. I really liked it, but opening weekend audiences were much more lukewarm if you consider that C+ CinemaScore. Still, the people came out to see it, and I think it’s more potentially polarizing than actively disliked. My theory continues that this will have ardent supporters and also strong deriders, but it won’t dip as much as the “easy to ignore” Hercules. $22 million for Lucy this weekend, and hopefully that’s not just the liquor talking.
Those are my thoughts on the proceedings, I now turn it over to you, the jury.
Current Record: 33-71-5 against the wisdom of the crowds.
Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
- Guardians of the Galaxy: $66 million
- Get on Up: $13 million
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
