Box-Office Oracle: Oct. 2 – Oct. 4, 2009
COMMENTS
The Oracle has Zombieland at the top, Capitalism to win per theater.
#1 movie predicted correctly: 0 Weeks in a Row
1. Zombieland
It has a lot going for it. First off, it has the second most theaters (after Fame). It also has 1300 more theaters than any new release. It's got a nice trailer, and Sony has done a solid job promoting it. What could go wrong? The R rating is about it. But the Toy Story re-release is taking a few hundred of those lucrative 3D theaters away from Meatballs, and that will be enough to carry the day. I think.
Estimate: $21.3 million
Surrogates beat it on Wednesday, but adult fare generally does better on school nights. The international box office grab starts for this film in October, only then will we know the final financial verdict here.
Estimate: $17.9 million
3. Whip It!
It's very oddly placed for this market. Is it a girl power movie? A coming of age tale? A sports flick? If there's one thing ticket buyers hate it's uncertainty, and this one is gonna pay the price for that this weekend.
Estimate: $7.7 million
There's already a test case out there for this film. Ghost Town, which was pretty good. It starred Ricky Gervais, released in the fall, and had an odd premise to market. The difference was that this one isn't very good… but that doesn't matter too much on opening weekend.
Estimate: $7.6 million
5. Surrogates
The budget was $80m, it's made $18m so far. So Jonathan Mostow has some 'splaining to do.
Estimate: $7.0 million
I feel like there is a precedent for this I can't quite recall. But I also feel like rereleases rarely do any box office, although Nightmare Before Christmas has been an occasional exception. I just don't think parents are up for the three hour running time (which also cuts down on screenings) but we'll see. Perhaps they'll find it to be a good value and it will take third.
Estimate: $6.9 million
I have five films within a million dollars of each other, always a formula for chaos. Capitalism packed the four theaters it was in last weekend, to the tune of the 36th best per theater average of all time, but that tells us very little about this weekend. However, I expect it to win the per theater average contest, because the 962 screens it is showing on will enforce scarcity.
Estimate: $6.7 million
8. Fame
In three years people will just barely remember this existed. And then it will probably be time for another remake of it.
Estimate: $4.9 million
If you haven't listened to the "This American Life" podcast on this subject you really owe yourself. It has way less of the tonal issues the film has.
Estimate: $4.3 million
10. Love Happens
Once again, Inglourious Basterds could sneak into this spot. And once again I'm cheering for it to do so.
Estimate: $2.6 million
So who you got? Can either Whip It or Invention of Lying rise above their limited theater counts? Will the Rated R factor claim another victim? Is the Toy Story rerelease gonna surprise? It's your turn now, alert commenters, fire at will.
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I have 3 possible winners to this weekend. Zombieland is a horror comedy, and that type of movies rarely do well at the box office. Toy Story 3 is coming out next Summer, and some people will like to see again Toy Story 1 and 2. Clouldy could be the only movie to win 3 weekends win a row on 2009, and I bet on that.
My prediction:
1: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – $17.1M
2: Toy Story 3D Double Feature – $13.0M
3: Zombieland – $12.5M
4: Capitalism – $7.5M
5: Sorrugates – $7.2M
Zombieland looks hilarious, and its seeming like everyone I'm talking to is going to see this movie. The only thing that it has to be worried about is R-rated horror overkill- but I think that everyone is interpreting it as more of a comedy than a horror film, so it probably doesn't have anything to worry about. I'm predicting another Cloudy win, though; if the Toy Story re-releases don't make a significant dent at the box office here, it will probably have a drop under 30%. Whip It! should flop, The Invention of Lying should do decently (for a Ricky Gervais comedy), and Toy Story is a wild card. Predictions:
1. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs- $19.9 million
2. Zombieland- $16.8 million
3. Toy Story & Toy Story 2 3D- $8.0 million
4. Capitalism: A Love Story- $7.4 million
5. Surrogates- $7.3 million
6. The Invention of Lying- $6.8 million
7. Whip It- $6.2 million
8. Fame- $4.8 million
9. The Informant!- $3.6 million
10. Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself- $2.8 million
How in the world did Fame get so many theaters? What would make a good article is how theater owners decide what to show, and how many screens per week.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – $18.5M
The Invention of Lying – $13.4M
Zombieland – $11.2M
Whip It! – $10.7M
Toy Story 3D – $9.6M
Good lord, a week of friggin comedies! Cloudy's not going to drop more than 25% m8
Cloudy – $20.2 mil
Zombieland – $16.8
Toy Story – $14.9
…Capitalism – $9 mil
Not having kids, it's hard to get a sense of Toy Story 3D's chances. But I don't think movie length is going to be an obstacle for parents. Parents seem used to taking children home when the kids are tired (or when the parents are). Some might just show up for the second half. Disney, of coarse, would like to make as money on this as possible (somehow they have to pay for Surrogates), but let's face it: This movie and it's marketing will easily be paid for just by renewed interest in it's DVD's, wall calendars, t-shirts, money saved from advertising the Disney Brand, etc. They could actually afford to let people watch it for free.
Either Pandorum, Jennifer's Body, or Love Happens will get #10.
This is going to be a close weekend but I'm giving Zombieland the edge over Meatballs because of the Toy Story factor.
Zombieland- $20.2 million
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs- $17.4 million
Toy Story 1&2- $13 million
Whip It- $11.8 million
The Invention of Lying- $9.3 million
"Capitalism: A Love Story" is terrific, much much better than the critics give it credit for, I think. It'll be a word-of-mouth. "The Invention of Lying" is neither as clever nor as funny as it wants to be. A bit of a letdown, but it'll make a respectable amount possibly. "Whip It" is lovely entertainment, in my humble opinion. Not a masterpiece, but a charming, funny delight. I think it may do a bit better than you think. "Zombieland" is one of the best films of the year, imo. GREAT stuff to me. It'll be big.
And the "Toy Story" 3D rerelease…well…we know what will happen with that. Nothing necessary to say.
I'm not counting on Zombieland to hit #1, only because horror movies have been floundering in recent weeks. My guess is that Cloudy hits #1 again, or Toy Story.
I think Invention of Lying would have placed better if it stuck to its original release date of last weekend. Only Surrogates came out, but Cloudy was still rolling. Oh well, Ricky is a genius and I am excited about this movie
I saw the sneak peak of Whip It! and I loved it. I read the book by Shauna Cross and i think the movie was really good. it was funny and i loved the derby games scene they were fun. ya'll should really try and see Whip It!
1. Zombieland – $21.3 million. Agreed with you here.
2. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – $12.0 million. I'd like to be as optimistic as all of you guys, but I just can't see it falling 30% or something. Coraline dropped 12% on its second week too, then dropped 22%, and on the fourth weekend it met Jonas Brothers in 3-D and collapsed 54%. So I used it as an example.
3. Toy Story 3-D double feature – $9.3 million
4. Surrogates – $7.5 million
5. The Invention of Lying – $5.7 million
6. Fame – $5.5 million
7. Capitalism – $5.0 million
8. The Informant! – $4.3 million
9. Whip It – $4.3 million
10. Love Happens – $2.6 million
I just got back from a midnight showing of "Whip It" and it was fantastic. Unfortunately, there were only 14 people (including me) in the theater. Zombieland, which I'm sure is also really good…….had a full house. 30 people in front of me on line all went to Zombieland and the guy was saying it was close to sold out. So……..say it was like 300 to 14 at this theater……..I would say that Zombieland will make 30 million this weekend. Whip It will be lucky to make 4 million.
@m1: 9 could get that spot too.
I cannot escape the buzz from Whip It. While I have NEGATIVE 10 interest in seeing this movie, the promotional push has been impressive. We'll see if a strong promotional push can help a lame concept of a movie. While I'm happy for the people who like this movie, this is the first movie of the year that has been able to ANNOY me. A chic flick/over the top female empowerment film that hopes to pull in stupid guys with "sports". Roller Derby is not a real sport. If I want to see real female empowerment, I'll rewatch something with with Miley Cyrus. She Rules!
The last horror film to make this list was the abnormally panned The Final Destination.
@m1: I meant #1.