B.O. Preview: September 27, 2013

Another Friday with a whole new slew of releases to enjoy in theatres so let's take a look at this weekend in movies...

The biggest opening comes in the form of Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2, the sequel to the 2009 family hit which opened to 30.3 million 4 years ago on it's way to 125 million domestically, a rather low figure for family oriented animation, but a high point for Sony Animation thus far. Given the first one was well liked and the marketing job Sony has done for it's sequel, I'm expecting a huge weekend for Cloudy 2. Sony is modestly predicting the low 30 millions but I think it'll top Hotel Transylvania (42.5 million) record setting September opening last year for the above stated reasons as well as the lack of family oriented films to choose from, last week had The Wizard of Oz and Planes occupying the 9th and 10th spot respectively at the Box Office and they represented the best 2 options, The Wizard of Oz was a one week promotion and Planes will be entering it's 8th weekend so I expect families to flock to Cloudy 2 and open north of 40 million easily.

There is also a pair of romantic comedies opening up this week. Joseph Gordon-Levitt wrote, directed and starred in Don Jon opposite Scarlett Johansson. Both have nice star power but the combination of New Jersey accents and Pornography may draw some people away. It'll be in good shape with 10 million which would be up from his films 50/50 and last summer's Premium Rush and the (500) Days Of Summer effect can not be counted out since this does fall in JGL wheelhouse. Secondly African-American rom-com Baggage Claim is being released in over 2000 theatres this week which is a hefty amount for Fox Searchlight since their last release to debut in that many theatres was Street Kings way back in 2008. 10 million is possible, but with direct competition from Don Jon, that might be asking a little much.

Also following it's underwhelming limited release, formula 1 pic Rush starring Thor himself is expanding to 2,297, given it's surprisingly low numbers last week from NY and LA. I find it hard to believe that Ron Howard's film will have difficulty finding an audience in North America despite it's amazing reviews. I think we'll have to wait for award season to see a bump in sales from Rush. The low teens seems to be it's ceiling but I think we'll end up with 3 movies in the 8 - 12 million range this week.

The only other opening is Metallica Through The Never hitting IMAX's this week and although a Justin Bieber/One Direction opening is not possible, expect a solid 1 million plus opening before it goes nationwide next week. Also expanding is Enough Said the last film starring James Gandolfini which has good reviews and word of mouth, despite playing in only 277 locations, expect it to cross the million dollar threshold as well.

As far as holdovers, Insidious 2 will drop another 50%+ likely pushing it out of the top 5, the same can be said for opening week cousin The Family. As you will see below I give up on properly guessing Instructions Not Included but given the lack of adult alternatives this week, expect a small decline, the same can be said about Prisoners, We're The Millers and The Butler.

4 new inclusions in the Top 10 mean 10 have to go and unfortunately Riddick has been dropping faster than a brick after it's solid opening. The effects of The Wizard of Oz in IMAX will have worn off and after Battle of the Year's horrendous opening expect it to fall into obscurity immediately. Also longtime Top 10 Planes has reached the end of it's rope but expect it to kick around the top 15 for weeks to come.

My Predictions:

1. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (44 million)
2. Prisoners (13.6 million)
3. Don John (11.8 million)
4. Rush (10.8 million)
5. Baggage Claim (9 million)
6. Insidious 2 (6 million)
7. Instructions Not Included (4.9 million)
8. We're The Millers (4.2 million)
9. The Butler (3.9 million)
10. The Family (3.8 million)

Last Week:

My Prediction                                                 Actual
1. Prisoners (21 mil)                                    1. Prisoners  (20.8 mil)
2. Insidious Chapter 2 (15.3 mil)                   2. Insidious Chapter 2 (13.8 mil)
3. Battle Of The Year (8 mil)                         3. The Family (7 mil)
4. The Family (7.9 mil)                                 4. Instructions Not Included (5.4 mil)
5. We're The Millers (4.2 mil)                        5. Battle Of The Year (4.6 mil)
6. The Butler (4 mil)                                     6. We're The Millers (4.6 mil)
7. Instructions Not Included (3.6 mil)             7. The Butler (4.2 mil)
8. Riddick (3.4 mil)                                      8. Riddick (3.7 mil)
9. Planes (2.4 mil)                                       9. The Wizard Of Oz (3.1 mil)
10. The Wizard Of Oz (1.8 mil)                    10. Planes (2.7 mil)

Scorecard: F  You'd think over guessing the top movie by .2 million would be a good week. But alas after that it fell off the rails. After over guessing Instructions Not Included last week, I drastically undercut it this week where it actually made money from last week. Battle Of The Year tanked even more than I had assumed it would. The Wizard Of Oz had a record setting IMAX re-release that no one seen coming. and I predicted higher declines for the bottom tier movies (Planes, Riddick, We're The Millers and The Butler) as they all made somewhere between .2 million and .4 million than I had guessed. Not to mention last week's new releases Insidious (-65.7%) and The Family (-50.1%) had steeper drops than I expected. But hey I'm hanging my hat on the closeness I was to Prisoners.

B.O. Preview: September 20, 2013

It's friday! That means another weekend at the theatres is upon us... Let's take a look at what is being released this week...

The biggest opening this week comes from Prisoners, a drama starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal that is poised to take 1st place over the weekend opening up in 3,200+ theatres. Prisoners tells the story of Keller Dover (Jackman) facing every parent's worst nightmare. His six-year-old daughter, Anna, is missing, together with her young friend, Joy, and as minutes turn to hours, panic sets in. The only lead is a dilapidated RV that had earlier been parked on their street. Heading the investigation, Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) arrests its driver, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), but a lack of evidence forces the only suspect's release. Knowing his child's life is at stake, the frantic Dover decides he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands. But just how far will this desperate father go to protect his family? A good enough sounding presence and it's from an Oscar winning director in Denis Villeneuve, albeit an Oscar winner for a foreign language film. The problem I have with Prisoners is it is admitedly the first adult drama of the fall season, generally a good time for this type of film to come out, but it may be a little too dark for the average adult movie goer, that being said a strong cast and solid marketing campaign should be enough to push Prisoners ahead of holdover Insidious 2 and other nationwide release Battle of the Year. A solid 20+ start is expected, I'd say the ceiling would be Les Miserables (27 mil last christmas) but would be shocked if this movie didn't open with a 2 in front of the 8 figures.
Battle of the Year as a much worse future ahead of it, moviegoers are obviously getting bored of the 3D dance movie gimmick as shown by the poor numbers Step Up Revolution put up last summer (a hair over 11 mil). Sony is only expecting 6 - 8 million for the weekend which even given Chris Brown's starring role in the film, seems about right considering the disasterous reviews it has gotten thus far and the fact that it's barely hitting 2000 theatres over the weekend. However it is important to note that it's been a slow time for teen movies so after everyone went to see Insidious 2 last weekend, nothing else in theatres would really appeal to the aged 13-19 crowd, I'd suggest seing Insidious 2 however or Percy Jackson if you haven't already.

Insidious 2 had a big opening, and although the first held well, this one will likely fall in with the usual horror movies, immensely frontloaded taking a dive of about 60% the 2nd week. Last week's other opening The Family checked in a little better than the studio thought, normally these types of movies hold decently well but given the new arrival of Prisoners as direct competition I expect about 50% fall. The same could be said for The Butler, that at this point has already gone well above expectations as it is a surprise summer movie hit, also surprisingly a summer hit is We're The Millers which has had middling reviews at best but continues to hold strong due to strong word of mouth, reminds me a little bit of Battle: Los Angeles which suffered from negative reviews but audiences couldn't get enough. I expect the Millers to continue to dip between 30 and 40 percent like it has been.

Family movies Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters and One Direction: This Is Us will likely see their exit from the top 10 this week with the new entries of Battle of the Year and Prisoners, One Direction benefited last weekend from an extended "fan cut" being released which limited it's drop, expect it to all off the face of the earth this week, while Percy is holding okay, the domestic box office has to be dissapointing at this point with only 62+ million domestically.

Other movies opening this week are Ron Howard's Rush which opens solely in New York and Los Angeles, as well as sex addict comedy Thanks For Sharing which opens at only 247 theatres and the reviews have been mixed so don't expect a million from either title, but don't be surprised to see Rush put a per-theatre average around $100,000.

The only other "new" movie is the re-release of The Wizard of Oz in IMAX. Considering the success of past IMAX releases (Raiders of The Lost Ark, Top Gun) I wouldn't be surprised to see it as a top 10 movie ahead of Elysium but it'll be close.

My Predictions:

1. Prisoners (21 mil)
2. Insidious Chapter 2 (15.3 mil)
3. Battle Of The Year (8 mil)
4. The Family (7.9 mil)
5. We're The Millers (4.2 mil)
6. The Butler (4 mil)
7. Instructions Not Included (3.6 mil)
8. Riddick (3.4 mil)
9. Planes (2.4 mil)
10. The Wizard of Oz (1.8 mil)

Last Week:

My Prediction                                                 Actual
1. Insidious 2 (30 mil)                                     1. Insidious 2 (40.3 mil)
2. The Family (15 mil)                                     2. The Family (14 mil)
3. Instructions Not Included (7.5 mil)                3. Riddick (6.8 mil)
4. Riddick (7 mil)                                            4. The Butler (5.5 mil)
5. The Butler (5.8 mil)                                     5. We're The Millers  (5.4 mil)
6. We're The Millers (5.5 mil)                           6. Instructions Not Included (4.9 mil)
7. Planes (3.9 mil)                                          7. Planes (3.1 mil)
8. Elysium (2.5 mil)                                        8. One Direction: This Is Us (2.5 mil)
9. One Direction: This Is Us (2 mil)                  9. Elysium (2.1 mil)
10. Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters (1.8 mil) 10. Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters (1.9 mil)

Scorecard: C+ Apart from underguessing Insidious 2 by 10 million... Oops. The only other big mistake was Assuming Instructions Not Included wouldn't fall as much as it did, I even gave it a chance to make more than last week but guess conservatively, but not conservatively enough as it ended up dropping 40%. The 2 next highest differences was overguessing The Family by 1 million and overguessing Planes by 0.8 million. Altogether not horrible, but no t particularly good either.