1. Michael Jackson's This Is It: $25.5 million. I'm saying you are being bullish. All the rabid fans will see it on Wednesday. Most people who want to see it will see it either on Wednesday, Thursday, or the weekend. The last movie to open wide on a Wednesday? "9." On Thursday it had a 58% drop; I predict TII will have as big a Thursday drop. That puts it around $3mil on Thursday. So even if it dramatically increases its gross on Friday, it'll still only hit somewhere in the $20 millions for the weekend. "9" made $10.7mil OW. So when TII opens at twice its gross opening day, I think it's pretty optimistic to put its OW at MORE than twice 9's, especially because "9" had weekday numbers that followed the family movie patterns. Also, there's Halloween on Saturday. Every movie will suffer a heft drop because of it, except for the horror movies.

2. Paranormal Activity: $17.9mil. Speaking of horror movies… It expands an extra 400 theaters this weekend, which will give it a slight boost. It'll also get a slight boost from Halloween night, and it has no competition. I think that's enough to drop it only 20%.

3. Where the Wild Things Are: $7.3mil.

4. Law Abiding Citizen: $7.1mil

5. Couples Retreat: $6.9mil.

6. Saw VI: $5.9mil. I'm actually "only" going to drop this 60%, which is pretty good compared to Saw IV & V. It's gotten better reviews, and also its disappointing opening leaves more room for erstwhile fans to consider returning to the fold.

7. Astro Boy: $4.0mil.

8. The Stepfather: $3.4mil. Halloween weekend means another drop below 50%, but after this it's at least 50% drops from here on out.

9. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: $3.4mil.

10. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant: $2.4mil. It'll drop more than 60% for two reasons: One, Halloween night will hurt it. Two (and perhaps this should be one), these middling fantasy failures have punishing drops (both "Golden Compass" and "Eragon" dropped more than 60%).

This week:

This is It (32)
Paranormal Activity (26)
Saw VI (13)
Where the Wild Things Are (12)
Law Abiding Citizen (11)
Couples Retreat (11)
The Stepfather (9)
Astro Boy (8)
Zombieland (7)
Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (4)
A Serious Man (2)

1.) This is It – $ 43.5 mil
2.) Paranormal Activity – $ 17 mil
3.) Law Abiding Citizen – $ 8.5 mil
4.) Where the Wild Things Are – $ 7.2 mil
5.) Saw 6 – $ 6.8 mil
6.) Couples Retreat – $ 6 mil
7.) Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – $ 5 mil
8.) Amelia – $ 4 mil
9.) Astro Boy – $ 3.5 mil
10.) The Stepfather – $ 3.2 mil

i hope amelia doesnt crack the top 10, lets just officialy call her dead

this is is 40mil
paranormal activity 23mil
saw 6 mil
wil things 6mil
law abiding 5mil

My prediction for This is It is a bit low then yours, i think Thursday numbers were a disapointing. Paranormal Activity is now on 2400 theatres, so it will have a normal per theater average. The rest will be lots of holdhovers…

My top 5 prediction:
1: This is It – $36.9M
2: Paranormal Activity – $15.0M
3: Law Abiding Citizen – $7.9M
4: Where the Wild Things Are – $7.6M
5: Couples Retreat – $6.7M

correction: Amelia gains 250 theaters in the weekend.

Top 10 are as follows:
1.) This Is It – 44.6M
2.) Paranormal Activity – 19.3M (gains 400 theaters)
3.) Law Abiding Citizen – 7.5M
4.) Couples Retreat – 6.8M
5.) Where the Wild Things Are – 6.6M
6.) Saw VI – 5.8M
7.) Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs – 3.8M
8.) Astro Boy – 3.4M
9.) The Stepfather – 3.3M
10.) Amelia – 2.9M

Yes, our placements are the same except for 8 and 9. I won't be surprised it This Is It would crash at 30M weekend, I think It'll suffer a drop at thursday, then a great surge on friday until it becomes steady on sat. sun. due to Holloween.

1) This is It – 43.5 million
2) Paranormal Activity – 19.7 million
3) Law Abiding Citizen – 7.8 million
4) Saw IV – 7.6 million
5) Where the Wild Things Are – 6.9 million
6) Couples Retreat – 6.3 million
7) Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – 3.9 million
8) Astro Boy – 3.4 million
9) The Stepfather – 3.2 million
10) Amelia – 2.8 million

That opening day is pretty discouraging, and if it makes around $3-$4 million thursday, I'm not seeing how it could bounce back with a huge Friday. Maybe the Jackson hype is wearing down. Also, the fact that Saturday is halloween ought to hurt it. Maybe they should have waited till Friday to release it to have more money on the opening weekend to boast about. Idiots.

1. This Is It- $26.5 million
2. Paranormal Activity- $12.3
3. Where The Wild Things Are- $7.7 million
4. Law Abiding Citizen- $7.3 million
5. Couple's Retreat- $7 million
6. Saw VI- $5.7 million
7. Astro Boy- $3.8 million
8. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs- $3.6 million
9. The Stepfather (2009)- $3.5 million
10. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant- $2.8 million

I don't think that "This is It" will make $40 million for the weekend.

My only reasoning is that if you look at this week, it only has maybe one day to truly shine.
Wednesday was solid but disappointing, I'm sure Thursday (today) will drop quite a bit (I'm calling for maybe $4 million max today), Saturday everything will be affected by Halloween, and no movie has a truly strong Sunday. So "This is It" has only Friday to make most of its bank.

I truly think that it won't make much more than $30 million for the weekend. And that all depends on the Friday ticket sales hitting double digits at least.

These numbers are pretty hard to nail. On one hand the Wed opening of TIT was pretty dissapointing and Iv'e seen three day estimates for it as low as 20mill. I have no idea how much it could bounce back, but I wouldn't be suprised if PA was number one agian since it is the Halloween weekend.

After the weak numbers shown on Wednesday, I'm starting to think "This Is It" is definitely a whimper, and not a bang. I always thought the media was overestimating how much this movie would make (U$250 million in 5 days???), but I certainly thought the movie would perform better.

I'll say U$26.1 million opening weekend.

The $7.445 million wednesday total includes $2.2 million from tuesday night before midnight, for an actual $5.25 million wednesday. This is in line with tracking polls predicting just over $40 million through Sunday. Call it $30 million over the weekend. Still, it should do $80 million domestically, and $160 million overseas, give or take. There is definitely some hostility to this film, but will that cause fans to become defensive and see the film again? Probably not.

Since I adopted the motto, "build it and they will come" because of the recent record box office numbers, I'll be interested to see what a weekend of repeats looks like. It's hard to make a bold decision that could cost you career points, instead of a safer, blameless one, but I think studios will regret totally clearing out this weekend, like 'This is It' was Transformers or something. Then again, they could justify it as a P.R. decision(respect for Michael.)

I was wildly unimpressed by "Michael Jackson's This Is It," but then…that's me. I hated it. Only movie I saw this week, unless you count "The Fourth Kind," which I'll get into next week. Anyway, MJ's movie will be huge at the box office.

I was predicting "This Is It" for around $45M to $50M … until I saw Wednesday's numbers … absolutely brutal. So I'll predict $28.3 million, and it may even be down to second place before the weekend is over.

Comedies are continuing to rule this year. Who would have thought that Zombieland would outgross WTWTA?

Some people are not letting the MJ controversies go and the hostility to 'This Is It' is devolving into some good natured(?) ribbing/namecalling that could cause negative peer pressure. Oh, oh.

I'll only weigh in on the Michael Jackson movie, which was fantastic by the way.

Wed-Sun: $50.0 million

Frid-Sun: $34.3 million

I don't see "This Is It" hitting 30mil over the Fri-Sun period. Fri should be solid, but this will get kneecapped on Halloween Saturday along with the other movies with the exception of Paranormal Activity. "This Is It" will still be no.1 but as has been proved by the early returns so far, many of us-including myself-were overly optimistic.

1.This Is It= 26.2mil
2.Paranormal Activity= 18.1mil
3.Law Abiding Citizen= 6.7mil
4.Couples Retreat= 6.1mil
5.Saw VI=5.5mil

I don't consider Wednesday's $8.8m to be a failure. It was a Wednesday. Plus the weekend shows are already selling out… so while I personally hope it doesn't make much I feel decent about my $50m call.

This is It- 40.1m
Paranormal Activity
Couples Retreat
Where the Wild Things Are
Sav VI

1. This Is It-Everybody Wants To See MJ One Last Time-55.2
2. Paranormal Activity- A Popular Film That Will Hit The 100 Million-31.5
3. Law-Abiding Citizen- Though Not A Great Film, Sure Is Entertaining- 17.9
4. Where The Wild Things Are- Possibly An Oscar Contender?- 15.8
5. Cirque Du Freak:The Vampire's Assistant- With Halloween Being Tomorrow, It's A Possibilty- 13.7
6. Couple's Retreat- Should Be Around 90m domestically soon – 9.2
7. Astro Boy- Wasn't As Great As Anticipated, Might Be Hurt By MJ- 7.5
8. Saw VI- The First Saw Film To Bom- 3.9
9. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs- Still In Theaters, Doing great- 2.2
10. Zombieland- Might Not Be Possible, But Zombies Work Well On Halloween- 1.3
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
11. Amelia- A Flop- 1.1
12. The Stepfather- Wen It Comes To Bad Horror Films, This Is 3rd- 1.0
13. Surrogates- Bruce Willis Is Baffled At This Bombing- 0.9
14. Halloween 2- Though I May Be Called Ignorant, It Too Is A Halloween Film- 0.8
15. 9- The Academy Is Eying This Film Like A Hawk- 0.7
16. Pandorum- Dennis Quaid + Horror=?- 0.5
17. Toy Story- It's Run Is About Done- 0.4
18. The Invention of Lying- Ricky Gervais's Comedy Delivered The Goods- 0.4
19.The Boondock Saints II: All Saint's Day- ?- 0.2
20. Dragonball: Evolution- Just Joshing You- 0.0

With Friday's estimates in, it's looking like JM, who posted first, is also the closest to calling this weekend. I wonder how many times the first Box Office Oracle commenter turns out to be the closest? Kudos.