At midnight tonight Hollywood declares the start of the Summer moviegoing season with the bow of X-Men Origins: Wolverine opening on an enormous 4,000+ theaters. How big it will bow is the question of the day with many wondering if the pirated leak of the film last month will have any negative impact on its overall box office. Here’s the top five as I see it:
1. X-Men Origins: Wolverine — $85 million
Early reviews haven’t been kind — but who cares! This is summertime. This is good, clean, popcorn entertainment with a hunky Hugh Jackman and some cool special effects. Plus, the economy’s in the toilet, pigs are infecting us with the flu, and Pakistan’s got nuclear arms. I can’t think of a better time for a Wolfman with shiny blades to entertain us. Whether or not the film can match Iron Man‘s incredible $98.6 million box office opening last year at this time remains to be seen, but it’s highly unlikely that the leaked copy will truly hamper the film’s grossing potential.
2. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past — $15 million
This formulaic romantic comedy starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner is the traditional "counter-programming" option that Hollywood doles out to anybody not interested in super heroes and special effects. The critics have skewered this film, but tracking still suggests the appeal of the McConaughey and Garner will get it opened in the teens. I’d rather stay home and watch some vintage McConaughey in Dazed and Confused but perhaps sappy romance is what audiences are looking for today.
3. Obsessed — $13 million
Beyonce shocked box office watchers with the $28.6 million opening for her girl-on-girl catfight with Ali Larter. Its second weekend is likely to drop 60 percent like most surprise hits that have come before it. But that would still put the film at $13 million, which is quite a feat for a movie everybody under-estimated.
4. 17 Again — $5.5 million.
Zac Efron should be sticking around in the top five for the third weekend in a row. His lovable body swap comedy has already made over $40 million at the box. This weekend may get hit a little more with the teenagers flocking to Wolverine, but it should still crack the top 5 this frame.
5. Earth — $5 million
Okay, so Disney isn’t donating any more trees in exchange for your tickets this upcoming weekend but that doesn’t mean audiences aren’t going to show up for this nature doc. The movie’s weekday sales have been strong with the film holding on to the No. 2 slot over The Soloist. And with limited children’s fare in the marketplace, it may hold in this weekend pretty well.
Also opening this weekend is Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions Battle for Terra. This 3-D sci-fi animated pic has received little in the way of marketing support. Bowing on only 1159 theaters, most expect the film featuring voice talent from Justin Long and Evan Rachel Wood to not surpass the $3 million for the three-day frame.
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sure, 85 million, but expect a huge drop next weekend from disappointment and the second coming of star trek.
Yeah, Wolverine’s gonna open to a rediculous amount of money. Then take a huge crap next week when Star Trek makes $100 million in it’s opening weekend. I, like many others, am sure Wolverine will semi-suck but no way am I gonna miss Hugh Jackman in full badass mode!
P.S… TWILIGHT SUCKS!!!
I think Wolverine will probably end up in the 90-95 Million dollar range considering what Fast and Furious did, i can’t imagine it not overperforming that by less than 15-20 Million. The leak probably will cost the film a few million, but nothing significant. Also, having Jackman as the feature as opposed to a role player will draw in more females, this thing could still break 100 and i wouldn’t be suprised.
Star Trek next week i know its getting pretty decent reviews from fans and non-fans. But, this franchise has a stigma, teens are gonna be very wary to walk into a theatre to go see a Star Trek movie, it just still has geek-fest written all over franchise. Look for it to open in the 60 range, and be billed as a disappointment, then end up doing decent totals. The film needs to be looked at on the Batman Begins model, rebuild the franchise, do decent numbers, look for the next film to be the one you cash in on.
1)X-Men Origins: Wolverine- $96 Million:
Like you said who cares about the reviews people need a movie like this where a man kicks the crap out of people. And to me, I think the leak actually helped the movie out. Anyway, it probably if not definetly will not make The Dark Knight, but it will definetly make Iron Man good.
2)Ghosts of Girlfriends Pasts- $26 Million:
While the males are watching Wolverine, a lot of the women will probably check out this movie.
3)Obsessed- $12 Million:
With its surprising opening last weekend, it will probably continue to good for maybe one more week.
4)Earth- $7 Million:
Even though it has great reviews, it just doesn’t look like it has a strong of an audience.
5)17 Again- $6 Million:
It looks like this is its last weekend in the Top 5.
And out of the Top 5-
8)Battle for Terra- $2 Million:
Lets face it if you are not a PIXAR or a Dreamworks animation, you are not going to do as great.
And as for the next weekend(as if we didn’t know again)-
1)Star Trek
2)X-Men Origins: Wolverine
3)Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
4)Obsessed
5)Next Day Air
It looks like we all can predict the whole month of May thanks to the fact that a blockbuster is being released week after week.
If Jackman Wolverine is BIG, he should go to Mexico to fight the pig … flu.
I don’t think Wolverine is going to be as big as everyone thinks it is. Most fans haven’t forgiven the abysmal X3 and most also view this prequal as unnecessary. I think Ghost of Girlfriends Past could hit 20 mil, while critics hate RomComs, girls love them, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they all turned out to see Matthew and Jen dance around on screen. Needless to say, while there is no doubt Origins will be number 1 this week, I also have no doubt it will be crushed next week. All the hype Star Trek has been having is going to pay off big time!
Gotta love all these star trek geeks that actually think the new movie will make anything close to 100 million next weekend! All these trekkies think there are enough other trekkies out there to do it. This franchise died a long time ago and the new one just looks like 90210 on a spaceship, which really doesn’t excite the older fans. I’d say it’ll get about 70 maybe. It’ll probably be a big flop just like the second narnia movie was at this time last year.
Reviews go a long way with the box office and so far, Wolverine is getting some pretty poor reviews and Star Trek is getting some amazing reviews (100% so far on Rotten Tomatoes). I’m not saying that Wolverine will be a flop, but I think after the first weekend, word of mouth will spread and it’ll drop out of the top 5 fairly quickly (less than a month with all of the other big summer films being released). Star Trek may not get as big of draw the first week out, but if the movie is half as good as the critics says it is, word of mouth will spread and it’ll probably stay in the top 5 for much longer. Just look at Titanic (not one of my favorite examples but one none the less). It opened with about 20 million, but kept getting 20 million for another four months due to reviews and word of mouth. Now, Star Trek will NOT be another Titanic, but sustainability is a big key when looking at overall box office take and it looks like it’ll out gross X-Men this year.
And I don’t buy the ‘geek theory’ driving people away from this film. I think the general public has already recognized that this film is a reboot of the entire franchise just by the fact that JJ Abrams is at the helm, who’s known for creating character driven TV shows such as Felicity, Alias and Lost. People are identifying this film to be more a cool action sci-fi flick than a geek-fest.
JJ Abrams took a good idea like “Lost” and ruined it, so I expect he’ll do the same with “Star Trek”
Nicole, I do not think Obsessed will earn that much. Give it 10-11 million.
TBOJ def has my favorite predictions each week. Here are this weeks: http://theboxofficejunkie.com/2009/05/weekend-preview-wolverine-slashes-into.html
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Ooh, I can’t wait til Sunday night, when they post the final numbers here and a couple losers are the first to pipe in about how the predictions were off by a few bucks, after spending the entire weekend fixating on just how wrong he is going to be, and calling him out on it like they uncovered a major scandal. Come out of the basement boys, it’s a nice day out.
I went to the midnight showing, and loved it. Perfect pacing, well placed humor, and it balanced between poking fun at itself and taking itself seriously. Plus, a star is born in Lynne Collins as Silverfox. Can we say sexiest girl of the year?! The critics are crazy, and somehow expect every comic post Dark Knight has to be superb on every level. What happened to pure popcorn entertainment? I give Origins an A-.