Box-Office Oracle: May 28 – May 30, 2010
We're taking Sex and the City 2 for the win!
This could be a race. The reviews on Sex and the City 2 are largely negative, and it comes out a day earlier than Prince of Persia, which will bleed some of the weekend total. Keep in mind these are Fri-Sun predictions, you'll have to come up with your own calls for Memorial Day!
#1 movie predicted correctly: 13 Weeks In A Row
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This is a tough film to talk about with anything nearing objectivity. It's clearly a hyper-realized materialistic world that feels out of place given our current financial climate. But it's pure escapism for a group of people who won't be headed out to buy $500 shoes tomorrow. So throw out the reviews, because they aren't going to stop even one group of gals from skipping it. The first one made $415m worldwide on a $65m production budget. That's efficient filmmaking. That one opened at $57m at 3,285 theaters. This one has 3,445 theaters, so it gets a little boost there. Then subtract the $5m to $10m that Thursday will bring in and you end up at $62m. Or I do at least. Prediction: $62 million |
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It has more theaters than Sex and the City 2, but it's not a very good movie, which will hurt it with word of mouth. It's just an effects film, and fantasy history doesn't have a great recent track record. I'm opening this one below Clash of the Titans because it's not in 3-D.
Prediction: $51.04 million
A 44 percent drop, but only because people need something to see this weekend. If it weren't for the holiday this would be a doomed movie.
Prediction: $39.74 million
$525m made on a budget of $200m. Still some work to do, but it should pass the original's $585m … right?
Prediction: $12.77 million
Losing theaters this weekend, which begs the question: what distributors can get out of showing a film after only two weekends?
Prediction: $10.3 million
I should probably drop it more than 33.5 percent. But there will be some SatC 2 run-off and it started so low it doesn't have too far to fall.
Prediction: $6.41 million
MacGruber is losing five theaters after only one weekend! The production budget here was only $10m, so it won't be that large of a debacle. Just a few million lost for Universal.
Prediction: $2.42 million
Needs $10m more to crack the top ten of basketball films. I wouldn't bet on it.
Prediction: $1.68 million
And so we close the book on Date Night, a film that probably earned a few bucks with a $142m worldwide cume on a $55m production budget.
Prediction: $1.44 million
Nightmare on Elm Street or How to Train Your Dragon could also grab this slot, but it's a battle for less than half a percent of ticket buyers.
Prediction: $0.6 million
How say you? Anyone bold enough to take Prince of Persia in the top slot? Stranger things have happened, though I'd be sad to see the streak go.
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1.) Prince of Persia – $ 62.5 million
2.) Sex and the City 2 – $ 56.5 million
3.) Shrek Forever After – $ 36.2 million
4.) Iron Man 2 – $ 14.3 million
5.) Robin Hood – $ 11.4 million
6.) Letter to Juliet – $ 6.7 million
7.) Just Wright – $ 2.1 million
8.) MacGruber – $ 1.9 million
9.) Date Night – $ 1.6 million
10.) How to Train You Dragon – $ .75 million
Would have loved to see Kites make it to the Top 10 for the 2nd weekend in a row. But then the WOM amongst Indian moviegoers hasnt been that great and inspite of the good reviews from the foreign press i dont really think American audiences would go for this. It would fall.
1.Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time-$55.6 (N/A)
2.Sex and the City 2-$50.2 (N/A)
3.Shrek Forever After-$30.2* (-58%)
4.Robin Hood-$9.1 (-51%)
5.Iron Man 2-$9 (-66%)
6.Letters to Juliet-$7 (-23%)
7.Just Wright-$3.6 (-14%)
8.MacGruber-$2 (-51%)
9.Date Night-$1.9 (-32%)
10.How to Train Your Dragon-$1.2 (-33%)
Prince of Persia will be one of the biggest bombs of the year.
Sex and the City 2 – 57.6M
Shrek 4 – 47.5M
Prince of Persia – 37.8M
Iron Men 2 – 16.1M
Robin Hood – 10.5M
1. Sex and the City 2 – $54.2M (3-day) $65M (4-day) The reviews have been horrible. If not for Thursday opening, this one could've had a bigger three day weekend, but alas, the word of mouth on this isn't looking too good.
2. Prince of Persia – $42M (3-day) $51.4M (4-day) I don't think this one will make enough to justify any more of these films. Last "successful" opening for a video game movie was Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. And that was years ago with a more popular franchise name that actually crossed over to non-gamers. Does this one have enough crossover appeal?
3. Shrek Forever After $41.4M (3-day) $53M (4-day) Will overtake Prince of Persia in the four day race. Not that bad a movie (at least, better than Shrek the Third) and nothing out for families right now.
4. Iron Man 2 – $14.5M (3 -day) $17.6M (4-day)
5. Robin Hood – $9.7M (3-day) $12M (4-day)
And do I need to go further?
If I recall, Prince of Persia, though 47% at RT, is the best video adaptation ever. So it's a start. And no, I disagree on Laremy that it doesn't have a track record. The series has produced 4 games in the past 8 years. Surely, it won't be as massive as Pirates, but at least it won't bomb.
I expect it to be number 2, and number 1 the 2nd weekend if Splice or Greek doesn't excel well. I see fans of the game rushing in the first week and men who persuaded their girlfriends to watch this..
PoP – $58M
SaTC – $64M – Frontload central, I expect collossal 60% drop.
1.Sex and the City 2-$65.2 (Im giving it a $12 million Thursday for a 4-day total of $77 million!)
2.Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time-$55.5
3.Shrek Forever After-$38.2.
4.Iron Man 2-$9
5.Robin Hood-$8.1
6.Letters to Juliet-$6
7.Just Wright-$3.3
8.MacGruber-$1.35
9.Date Night-$1.3
10.How to Train Your Dragon-$1.2
@Laremy, I don't get your distributor joke re Robin Hood. Don't distributors pay their fees upfront, and thus would want Robin Hood in theaters as long as possible? If you mean theaters, aren't they locked in for two weeks and two weeks only? Maybe select stand alone theaters in New York and maybe L.A. have it in their contracts to be able to drop a film that severely underperforms-see MacGruber.
I'll be watching to see if tuesday's decline in moviegoing means all films not opening this weekend will have bad holds, or if it some kind of anomaly.
Not great wording out of me, but what I was getting at was the studio/theater split, which favors the studios upfront, which is why theaters attempt to hold films over longer periods (and hate the shrinking of DVD windows).
So for the theaters to cut bait on Robin Hood they are forsaking that better percentage in weekend three, and probably to bring in a new release where they'll face another bad contractual 60/40 split.
Just an indication of how weak that particular product is.
Persia doesn't appear to be doing that hot overseas, which is quite shocking because I would have expected otherwise. It'll need about 375m WW to break even for Disney. It certainly won't do very well here (it's selling 1 freaking percent of total sales on Fandango and Movie Tickets, if that's any indication). I'm expecting 31 million for the 3-day and 40 even for the long weekend.
Sex and the City will be VERY frontloaded from its opening Thursday, I think. I expect the 5-day total to be three times the opening day. So like a 45 3-day, 55 4-day and an 81 5-day.
Add in a good but not great drop for Shrek (40%-ish maybe? Weekdays are pretty decent.) and the result is a lousy end to a lousy month. June better be freaking huge. People have to be saving their money for something.
More notes on theater counts:
Tyler Perry's movie is now in Carmike theaters so Lionsgate fued with Carmike must be over.
Hot Tub Time Machine has moved into second run theaters.
"Why Did I Get Married" came out before "Kick-Ass" did, and our Carmike chain had the former for a month before dropping it (and we still had the former even with the feud over "Kick Ass"). But I think our theater chain has a good holdover on big first-run titles with repeat business:
"The Blind Side" – had it until a week after the DVD/Blu-ray came out
"The Hangover" – had that until mid-September
"Harry Potter 6" – had it until October
"The Dark Knight" – had that until a week before Thanksgiving
"Avatar" – had that until early April
SATC2- 62 (I like your call Laremy, feels about right)
Shrek- 45
POP- 41.8
IM2- 13
RH- 12
Damn it, I had the whole thing written out and I just deleted it by accident. I don't have time to write it back up, but I'm taking SATC to win with 52, POP with 43, and Shrek with 42. This will be a huge movie weekend for me: I'm planning on seeing MacGruber and Prince of Persia, as well as seeing Robin Hood again. I'm also planning on continuing a tradition I started last Memorial Day weekend of watching the Pirates trilogy.
Interesting weekend…
1.) Sex & the City- 54.7 mil
-Opening on thurs. will hurt it and bad WOM already and bad reviews will hurt it. But i wouldnt be suprised if it hit 60 mil… but i am just going low right now.
2.) Prince or Persia: The Sand Times- 42.3 mil
-Not a lot of people out there want to see this. I think after CLASH OF TITANS people gave up. I see this performing around the same numbers as TERMINATOR SALVATION. I would like to see this film to do well tho, because I like Jake.
3.) Shrek: Forever After- 32.5 mil
-Thank god for memomorial weekend! It will give this film a HUGE bumb. YAY SHREK!
4.) Iron Man 2- 16.7 mil
5.) Robin Hood- 10.3 mil
Let the women have the return of the Sex and the City girls Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda!
Next year lads we have the return of The Hangover boys Phil, Stu, Doug and Alan!
Maybe Prince Of Persia will take nr.1 next weekend. It seems fun
My money is on Prince Of Persia easily takeing the number one spot this week.
1. Sex and the City 2 – $72 Million
2. Prince of Persia – $43 Million
3. Shrek 4 -$34 Million
4. Iron Man 2 -$11 Million
5. Robin Hood – $6 Million
6. Letters to Juliet – $ 5 Million
7. MacGruber – $4 Million
8. Just Wright – $2.5 Million
9. Date Night – $1 Million
10. How to Train Your Dragon – $.7 Million
It's going to be a three-way horse race at the top this weekend…
1. Sex and the City 2- $43.8 million
2. Shrek Forever After- $42.3 million
3. Prince of Persia- $41.8 million
4. Iron Man 2- $17.8 million
5. Robin Hood- $13 million
These are Friday to Sunday estimates, not 4-day.