This weekend, the choices are either to soar with the eagles or dance with the devil, as Hollywood debuts two diametrically opposite movies: Pixar’s brightly animated Up and Sam Raimi’s horror flick Drag Me to Hell. Both are generating great reviews and are coming into the marketplace at just the right time, as there are no other movies like them. Expect a big weekend at the box office. My predictions are below.
1. Up: $65 million
Even with an old man (voiced by Ed Asner) as the lead, Pixar is sure to maintain its perfect track record, scoring a 10th hit feature in a row. While Disney is trying to temper expectations, the marketing on this movie — about a widower who tethers his house to a million balloons and soars off on an adventure with a surprise stowaway aboard — has children going bonkers in anticipation of its opening. (What kid wouldn’t wish to sail away on the power of helium?) Last summer’s WALL-E bowed to $63 million, but this time some 1,500 locations will be readied for 3-D glasses — and a premium ticket charge — which could breeze Up north of WALL-E’s opening.
2. Drag Me to Hell: $24 million
There hasn’t been a good ole horror movie in the marketplace since the R-rated Friday the 13th opened back in February to an impressive $40.6 million. While director Sam Raimi has a huge following, he certainly won’t be able to muster the strength of the evil Jason. However, with Alison Lohman in the starring role and those trailers looking extra scary, both horror fans and young women are going to be clamoring for tickets.
3. Night at the Museum: $23 million
I might be in the minority here (Lord knows, I overestimated last weekend on this film, predicting $80 million for the four-day, when it wound up with $70.1 mil) but I think Drag Me to Hell is going to best Night’s sophomore session. While the Ben Stiller starrer is truly well liked by the family audience, most interested people probably already saw it during the Memorial Day holiday. My guess is it will drop in the 55-60 percent range, garnering a third spot in the box office derby.
4. Terminator Salvation: $17 million
With its early Thursday opening and a total Memorial Day weekend take of $65.3 million, the McG-directed film has already garnered a good portion of its grosses. This weekend is likely to see a 60 percent drop in action.
5. Star Trek: $11 million
It’s a guarantee that this J.J. Abrams-directed revamp will cross the $200 million mark this weekend, making it the first film of the summer to do so. And with audiences still loving it, Star Trek is likely to gross more than Angels & Demons this frame, even though it opened one weekend before the Tom Hanks thriller bowed.
More Box Office News:
‘Night at the Museum’ opens with $70 mil
‘Angels & Demons’ summons a $48 million bow
‘Star Trek’ soars with $72.5 mil debut
‘Wolverine’ opens with an impressive $87 million
EW.com’s Box Office Chart
addCredit(“Disney/Pixar”)
I agree with this top 5. And I give you props, Nicky, for basically nailing Night at the Museum 2 last week (I thought you were nuts!)
why were people surprised that night at the museum beat t4? both had terrible reviews, but museum was review-proof…there hadn’t been a family movie out in weeks…and considering the original was the second highest grossing movie of 2006, it seemed obvious to me
Drag Me to Hell will do better than that.
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1)Up- $62 Million:
Another year, another PIXAR opening at #1.
2)Night at the Museum 2- $31 Million:
Up will definetly take some of NATM2′s audience.
3)Drag Me to Hell- $28 Million:
With no competition in its genre at all, DMTH should have a decent opening.
4)Terminator Salvation- $26 Million:
Even though it had a somewhat disappointing opening, I think it will have some surprising legs due to the fact that the next movie that is competition for T4 is Transformers 2 and that opens at the end of June.
5)Star Trek- $18 Million:
Its about time the first movie to hit the $200 Million mark comes.
As for next weekend-
1)Land of the Lost
2)Up
3)The Hangover
4)Night at the Museum 2
5)Terminator Salvation
The month of June is here!!!
Good Luck with your top five picks. I bet you nailed the Terminator Salvation estimate. If it’s lucky 60% will be a merciful drop. This was so universally panned by people I wouldn’t be surprised if it sees a 67-69 percent drop. I’m going with these numbers:
1) Up- 60million
2) Night @ the Museum- 24million
3) Drag Me To Hell- 22million
4) Terminator Salvation- 16million
5) Star Trek- 14million
Up – $67M
Drag me to hell – $28M
Night at the Museum – $21M
Terminator – $19M
Star trek – $11M
Up:64mil
NatM:30mil
DMTH:24mil
Terminator:18.5mil
Star Trek:14mil
I’m sure Up will do fine. Maybe it won’t be a Wall-E size hit, but it definitely will be successful.
Besides, we all know that more interesting animation (that really takes real chances) isn’t in theatres anyway — it’s online, like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnW6GsMBLMg
Up will be fine. It will play well throughout the Summer and end up around 230-250mil in No. America.
Go Wolverine! My favourite movie of the summer so far.
Next up – Drag Me To Hell.
So did Josh finally get fired? He was the worst predictor ever.
Saw box office numbers for Friday. Terminator made five million. It might not get to 17 million. Even Night at Museum 2 fell hard to just over 7 million. It is going to be a battle for number 2 between Drag Me and Museum, and another battle for number 4 between Star Trek and Terminator. Either way if the next 3 movies hold well next week and more than 2 movies in wide release, Terminator is totally gone from the top ten by week’s end.