With everyone mourning over MJ's death…I think audiences might stay home this weekend.

I predicted 57.8 million for Wednesday numbers… close enough…

1. Transformers 2=103.5mil ( 37mil Fri, 34.5mil Sat, 32mil Sun)
Total 5-day around 193.5mil. It was expected to open big and it will. Question now is, will it hold up in ensuing weeks with Public Enemies (taking adults/young adults), Ice Age 3 (taking the young kids), and the strong holdovers in UP, Hangover, and The Proposal that are still chugging along and carving a place despite the onslaught of competition.

(nos, 2, 3, and 4, will be a toss-up)
2.The Proposal=21.8mil
Women with no interest to be subjected to the sensory overload of Transformers will seek refuge here.

3.The Hangover=15.8mil
Word of mouth is strong and will soften the hit it will take from Transformers.

4.Up=15.5mil
Excellent word of mouth continues to exert it's influence. Still has it's eyes set for 300mil. 250mil by Sun to surpass Trek as no.1 for the year (though it will be short lived)

5.My Sisters Keeper=14mil
I think audiences are more in the mood of laughing with The Hangover and The Proposal, and/or the uplifting and hilarious tale that UP brings to the table.

I see 50% or more drops for most of the rest.

1.TF2=105mil (40/34/31)
It made 44mil or so during Wed (minus midnights), and going by past blockbuster films which had similar release patterns, I don't see any day during the weekend that will match that number. Yet, It may have enough steam to have a day (Fri or Sat) in the high 30mil and even sniff 40mil. I'm guess a 196mil 5-day take.

2.Proposal=22.2mil

3.Up=15.8mil
This movie held up the best during Transformers 2's wed opening

4.Hangover=15.6mil
Will stand up well despite losing a chunk of it's male audience to Transformers 2

5.My Sister's keeper=12mil
Bad relase date perhaps? There already exists a female counter-programming movie this weekend against Transformers 2, and that movie seems more enticing to women.

"With everyone mourning over MJ's death…I think audiences might stay home this weekend."

Yeah I don't think so – If anything, they'll try to go and cheer themselves up. Transformers is a perfect escape. Seriously.

3-DAY PREDICTIONS
1. TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN – $118.2 million
2. THE PROPOSAL – $19.1 million
3. THE HANGOVER – $17.8 million
4. UP – $15.6 million
5. SISTER'S KEEPER – $15.3 million

=]

I think 115mil is too high Laremy. At best, I think it'll get somewhere around 90-100mil, and at best, low 100s. The big Wed opening day will take some heat out of the weekend, as was the case with past comparable movies that opened a couple of days before the weekend.

1.Transformers 2: 98mil (188.6mil 5days)
2.Proposal: 23mil
3.Hangover:16.5mil
4.Up: 16.1mil
5.Sisters Keeper:11.4mil

Wouldn't it be great if Transformers 2 crashed? And if the only movies to pass $300 million were good? And pigs flew?

1. Transformers 2- $105.6 million
2. The Hangover- $19.3 million
3. The Proposal- $18.8 million
4. Up- $14.1 million
5. My Sister's Keeper- $12.7 million
6. Year One- $8.2 million
7. The Taking of Pelham 123- $5.3 million
8. Night At The Museum 2- $4.1 million
9. Star Trek- $3.2 million
10. Away We Go- $2.2 million

I think it's gonna do less. Word of mouth wouldn't take effect in just a weekend, but after 5 days people will start hearing how awful this movie is. I expect a huge drop saturday and, specially, sunday.

Also…
is it possible Michael Jackson's death could affect T2 box-office? At least for today…

My paper (KC Star) gave "My Sister's Keeper" 3 1/2 stars (out of four), and people like good movies, no matter how depressing they are (Rachel Getting Married comes to mind). Better a good depressing chick flick then some bad happy rom-com.

@Terry: I know MJ was a powerful entertainer, but was he really so powerful as to keep people from going to the theatre. No offense intended here at all, but its not like a member of everyone's family died.

no way does transformers do over 200 million in 5 days … word of mouth will kill it by saturday

1. Transformers 2 – $95 million
Well, the 60 million dollar open is quite impressive. And there are quite a few IMAX theaters showing it, so that may increase the number a bit. But I feel that it will fall quite a bit by the time Sunday rolls around. My friends who saw it on Wednesday were very negative about it.

2. The Hangover – $20.2 million
I want this movie to make over $200 million and I think it will. I loved this film and I have friends who are planning to go see it this weekend. Now, I'm not saying that I base my predictions on what my friends are doing. See number 3.

3. The Proposal – $19 million
I don't think any of my friends are seeing this. They also said that they aren't mourning MJ this weekend, so who knows.

4. Up – $14.2 million
Another movie I'm happy is doing well.

5. My Sister's Keeper – $11.5 million
The film is getting good reviews, but the movie looks very depressing. Depressing movies do well in the fall, they tend to fall hard in the summer.

"Summer films don't get nominated because the Academy has the memory of a medium sized ferret."

Way too effing true, Laremy. So true, in fact, that it's not even funny. It's like all the Academy members have Alzheimer's: they're stuck 15 years in the past and can't remember anything that happened before December.

1.Transformers 2: 93mil.
Terminator 2 is STILL the best live action robot-story movie… by a freaking mile. I'm all fo 2+ hours of wanton carnage and destruction, but there has to be some meaning behind them.

2.The Proposal:24mil

3.The Hangover: 16.2mil
C'mon now, you can't be serious that it'll only lose 5% from last weekend's take now, right? It'll still hold well but it will take in some water from Transformers. 200mil is in the bag and I'm really happy this is doing well

4.UP:15.5mil
Another movie that I'm happy is doing extremely well. The success of this one and Hangover has rekindled my hopes for the moviegoing public.

5.Sisters Keeper: 13mil

Um, what month did "Crash" come out? MAY!!!!

@Steve: Yeah, but the Academy go out of their way to notice crappy films.

@Bustray: Also, don't forget Gladiator, Braveheart, Unforgiven, The Silence of the Lambs (February), Forrest Gump. Yes, the Academy does seem to notice closer to December, but that may be more of a perceived notion in Hollywood that this is the time when everyone will remember them since they are still in theaters when awards consideration happens. But great movies with the right marketing can still be in the Academy's radar no matter what time of year they came out.

@Bustray: Sorry, didn't meant to just single you out. I was replying to you. But I could also be replying to JM, or Laremy

@TheCheckSpot: Don't sweat it, man.

I always had the feeling that Transformers 2 was going to blast-off on it's opening day, but never that it would do it with over 60M. This is just freaking amazing.

If Transformers 2 follows the same rythm of HP5 back in 2007, it should make about 105 million in the friday-to-sunday period and a colossal 192 million in the 5 day one. So, that would mean that it would have passed the 200 million mark in a mere 6 days, 1 more than TDK.

And please! even though it has surprised everyone, there's just no way Hangover is just going to fall 5%. That's just as unrealistic as believing that Transformers is going to earn a nomination for Best Pic at the oscars now that the number of nominees increased to 10.

Y'know… if Laremy's prediction for The Hangover is true… it will have grossed more in its fourth weekend then I initially guessed it would make in its first.

I'm actually more interested in next weekend, which will pretty much indicate what kind of word of mouth Transformers 2 is really getting. We can't really gauge that during opening weekends. The 180-190mil or so it'll make this weekend is going to be cited by some as a sign of good word of mouth, but I disagree. The ensuing weekends are the better barometer imho

I think you're right about transformers (thanks for the shout out!) but i think you're way high on everything else. A movie like transformers takes away the audience from other movies, it's target audience is everyone who likes one or more of the following:
a. megan fox
b. explosions and fights
c. transformers
d. mindless entertainment
you'd be hard pressed to find a large group of people who dislike all for of those things.

my predictions:
1. Transformers – $132 Million
2. The Hangover – $18 Million (finally a significant drop, it had to happen sooner or later)
3. The Proposal – $16 Million (still keeps a bit of the dat movie audience)
4. Up – $15 Million
5. My Sister's Keeper – $12 Million (all the wives will go see this while the husbands see transformers)
6. Year One – $7 Million
7. Pelham 123 – $5 Million
8. Star Trek – $4 Million
9. Night at the Museum – $3 Million
10. Away We Go – $1.5 Million (this would've done as well as you predict if they'd have waited to expand so much to next week, or done it last week.)

i saw transformers today and it was amazing i thought it would do great this weekend but then farrah fawcett died and now michael jackson died too sop that will propabley keep quite a few people in the house watching the news 24-7 this weekend but when i saw transformers i found out about farrah as i was getting ready to leave and didn't find out about michael until like 7 when i was eating dinner but i feel sorry for both of their families condolences to all

I think it will take an act of an almighty celestial entity for Transformers 2 to gross anything north of 110mil from the Fri-Sun period. If it does hit triple digits, it will do so barely and that's the ceiling for the 3-day weekend. As big a movie as it is, it will lose some steam because of the heavy combined business it will do on Wed and Thur. That's just how it plays out judging by past blockbusters who used similar release patterns. I think it'll go 35/36/30, for a 101mil weekend. 190mil over 5-days.

According to deadlinehollywood the movie made 27mill Thurs, so it's pretty much in the clear for atleast 180mill for the 5 day weekend. I think will be pretty damn hard for this flick to do over a 100 mill over three day weekend when so many people have already rushed to see it already. Sure Revenge Of The Sith did it, but it opened on a Thursday and many people were still going to school and quite a few had to go to work. Pretty much everybody who wanted o see it saw it already and now the movie will have to rely heavily on wom repeat viewings. But it should still make 90mill easily for the weekend.

TF 2 – $109,3 M, with $24M on Thursday.

T2 – 104.8M
Proposal
The Hangover
Up
Year One…

T2 thursday will be smaller than expected bcoz of MJ

Predictions:
Transformers: 105.7
The Hangover: 19.1
The Proposal: 18.5
Up: 17.4
Year One: 9.1
My Sister's Keeper: 8.2 (BOMB)
The Taking of Pelham: 5.8
Night at the Museum II: 5.3
Star Trek: 4.2
Land of the lost: 2.0

Who would wanna see My Sister's Keeper after Michael Jackson die? They'll just get more depress!

this is something i just thought about, but i feel like the amount of money transformers made on wednesday is even more impressive because movie tickets are usually cheaper during the week days… just saying

1. Transformers 2: 110.2m
2. Proposal: 21.8m
3. Hangover: 16.9m
4. Up: 15m
5. My Sister's Keeper: 8.5m

The Gopher has spoken.

1: Transformers 2-Revenge of the Fallen – $105m
2: Proposal – $20.5M
3: Hangover – $15M
4: Up – $14
5: Year One or My Sister´s Keeper – $8M – $10M

OFF-TOPIC : why Bruno had to be cut in EUA to receive the Rated-R rating and in Portugal the movie receive the classification M12 (only persons with 12 years or more can see it without an adult) without cuts?? Yes I am portuguese, so my english is very bad, but I would like an answer please.

Ok, so Transformers is oficially running at the same pace as HP5 did in 2007. Then it's absolutely foolish to think that is going to make less than 185 million for the 5 day opening.

Screw Transformers 2 and My Sister's Keeper… Public Enemies is going to be amazing next weekend, and an Oscar contender. Depp is brilliant on screen, I just hope Channing Tatum and Christian Bale dont ruin the film.

@BR: Channing Tatum prolly won't, but Bale…that man has almost become a sell out. He needs to go back to his American Psycho/The Machinist roots to recharge his battery.

On Sunday's page and on BOM, I went with Transformers 2 going with $105.2m. I think after the amazing Wed & Thurs numbers, I'm bumping it up by $11-12m (which I realize is in the exact same guess range as Laremy, just try to understand my logic haha).

I think if a surprise happens, it's that TF2 opens around/past $130m but has a huge "2007 three-quel style" drop (classic example of a huge frontloaded summer weekend, dropping the weekend after). In which case, Ice Age 3 will easily take #1 away from TF2.

1.) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – $116.7m
2.) The Proposal – $22.5m
3.) The Hangover – $20.8m
4.) Up – $15.7m
5.) Year One – $10.5m
6.) My Sister's Keeper – $7.4m (going with a bomb prediction)

@Eric: I agree, American Psycho was such a good movie. He almost turned me off of TDK because of that ridiculous voice he does while in the suit. It almost distracted from Ledger's amazing performance.

@JAB: first of all, ticket prices are exactly the same during the week days as they are on weekends. There are matinee prices and then there are night time prices. It doesnt matter what day it is, prices are always the same.