Gone Girl gets to be your repeat champion this weekend, becoming the eighth film to do so this year. Only ten films pulled off the consecutive weekend trick last year, and four did it from October on, so even though the box office is behind, it’s created a situation where movies can rise above the sinking fray. Gone Girl seems likely to reach medium profitability, though $61 million was probably still too much to spend on an adult drama, especially if The Social Network only cost a reported $40 million. My call for this weekend is a healthy $24.4 million, there won’t be much front-loading here, book-readers and older audiences are still out there for the taking.
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day will have zero people order the tickets by name, but I still expect families to show up. The marketing has been everywhere, with the kangaroo kicking Steve Carrell in what is perhaps the most fake looking scene of the year (I didn’t do a full audit). To hit my prediction of $23 million, this will need to end up in-between Muppets and Muppets Most Wanted. That sounds about right, even though writing about it is basically silly season given the title length.
Next up, Dracula Untold! It should have stayed untold, you can see the headlines now, but this looks to be a purely international play to me. It’s a smallish 90 minutes, so they’ll get one more showtime per day, a nice 15 percent bump in availability. It’s also in IMAX and fake IMAX, so there’s a few more dubbins as well. Overall, my call of $22.5 million could end up low, but I haven’t met a soul who wants to see this. Am I running in the wrong circles?
I’ve seen every possible type of trailer for The Judge. I’ve seen the comedy version, the serious version, the father/son version, the curmudgeon version, the “lawyers!” version. They have cast a wide net, but I don’t think that 44 percent on RottenTomatoes is lying. They are going to get this weekend alone to take advantage of folks, then it’s adios. $16.2 million is where I think it comes in.
Now it’s your time to shine!
Current Record: 45-92-5 against the wisdom of the crowds
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
