Box-Office Predictions: Can 'Identity Thief' Regain #1 Over 'Die Hard', 'Snitch' and 'Dark Skies' This Weekend?

COMMENTS

Get out your dartboards, it's going to be a wild weekend!

By: Laremy Legel
Published: Thursday, February 21st 2013 at 10:00 AM

Identity Thief is looking to pull off the rare feat of winning in its third weekend without having had won the second one. With a production budget of $35 million it feels likely that Identity Thief will end up in the red, especially once you factor in the 7,000 times it will play on HBO this winter. Getting a win with $14 million in earnings is also pretty strange, but the theaters will be empty on Sunday as Brad and I live blog The Academy Awards.

The new releases looking to overtake it include Snitch and Dark Skies. The tracking on these two titles is miserable, though the tracking on last weekend's A Good Day to Die Hard was way off if you're looking for precedent. What's up with the tracking, fellas? Don't tell me you're turning into Standard and Poor's over there.

Plus, check out these opening numbers:
Bullet to the Head $4.6 million
Parker: $7 million
The Last Stand $6.3 million

That's a world of hurt. Dwayne Johnson can't feel good about heading out into that maelstrom, and Snitch looks too generic to dominate, so I've placed it at a piddly $10.5 million opening.

The other new release, Dark Skies, wasn't screened for critics and also looks to be dead on arrival. My call of $7.2 million would not be well received by the Weinstein Co., although the production budget has yet to be released. A Good Day to Die Hard is predicted to sink like a stone, all the way down to $11.2 million. Dismal.

Luckily, we'll all have plenty of entertainment coming from Los Angeles this weekend, only it will be in the form of awkward acceptance speeches and attempted comedy. Hopefully we'll get an upset or two as well, and it's always fun to watch for the exact moment when my predictions go down in flames. Let's see some opening weekend calls on Snitch and Dark Skies, we'll see you Sunday evening for the live blog. Tune in!

Current Streak: Four weekends in a row.
Chances of Streak Being Broken: 90 percent.
Reason: I have the top twelve finishing at $84 million. No offense to me, but that's bonkers. I think four of the top five have a great shot at the crown and my track record in luck calls like this is, well unlucky.

Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
Snitch: $12 million
Dark Skies: $8 million

SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We'll have the actual counts in Sunday's wrap-up article.

Laremy's Box-Office Predictions for February 22 - February 24, 2013

- Identity Thief
- A Universal Pictures release
- $14.2 million
- THEATERS: 3,165 ($4,487 per theater)
- BUDGET: $35 million
- ROTTEN TOMATOES: 20%
A Good Day To Die Hard (20th Century Fox) - $11.2 million
Playing in 3,553 theaters ($3,152 avg.) / $92 million budget / 15%
Snitch (Summit Entertainment) - $10.5 million
Playing in 2,500 theaters ($4,200 avg.) / $35 million budget / 57%
Escape from Planet Earth (The Weinstein Co.) - $10.4 million
Playing in 3,288 theaters ($3,163 avg.) / $40 million budget
Safe Haven (Relativity Media) - $10.3 million
Playing in 3,300 theaters ($3,121 avg.) / $28 million budget / 13%
Dark Skies (Dimension Films) - $7.2 million
Playing in 2,400 theaters ($3,000 avg.) / 30%
Warm Bodies (Summit Entertainment) - $5.6 million
Playing in 2,600 theaters ($2,154 avg.) / $30 million budget / 80%
Side Effects (Open Road Films) - $4.4 million
Playing in 2,400 theaters ($1,833 avg.) / $30 million budget / 85%
Beautiful Creatures (Warner Bros.) - $4.3 million
Playing in 2,950 theaters ($1,458 avg.) / $60 million budget / 45%
Silver Linings Playbook (The Weinstein Co.) - $3.4 million
Playing in 1,500 theaters ($2,267 avg.) / $21 million budget / 92%