Image Credit: Twentieth Century Fox
Hollywood is presenting a cornucopia of choices this weekend, as four new movies are heading into theaters. Each film is targeting a different audience segment: horror buffs (Final Destination 5), adult women (The Help), fans of raunchy comedies (30 Minutes or Less), and, well, Gleeks (Glee: The 3D Concert Movie). But despite all of these choices, last week’s champion, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, will most likely come out on top once again. Here are my predictions for the weekend:
1. Rise of the Planet of the Apes: $27 million
Audiences are going bananas for this well-reviewed action film, which opened to a better-than-expected $54.8 million last week. With an “A-” rating from CinemaScore graders and a strong 8.0 score on IMDb, Apes should benefit from positive word of mouth this weekend. It’s typical for a summer action movie to drop 55 to 60 percent its second weekend, but Apes should hold up a bit better than that. Instead, look for a drop of around 50 percent.
2. Final Destination 5: $23 million
Each of the Final Destination movies has debuted stronger than the entry before it, with openings of $10 million, $16 million, $19.2 million, and $27.4 million. But I think that trend will stop with Final Destination 5. For one thing, all of the prior Final Destination movies were released three years apart from one another, but this new R-rated movie arrives just two years after 2009′s The Final Destination. (So much for The Final Destination being the final Final Destination.) Second, The Final Destination was the horror series’ first 3-D offering, and it was released during the apex of the 3-D craze. Since then, 3-D has lost some of its sheen — at least domestically. Those who do see Final Destination 5 will probably do so in 3-D, but the third dimension no longer has that new-car smell that likely attracted some folks to The Final Destination in the first place.
3. The Help: $20 million
This PG-13 drama, based on Kathryn Stockett’s bestselling novel, opened on Wednesday to a solid $5.5 million. Most impressively, the $25 million picture scored a rare “A+” rating from CinemaScore audiences, which means word of mouth should be excellent. And Fandango is reporting that, as of this writing, The Help is accounting for 52 percent of its online ticket sales. The movie should skew toward adult women: According to CinemaScore, 83 percent of the film’s Wednesday audience was female and 78 percent was at least 25 years old. Female moviegoers have previously made hits out of such August releases as Eat Pray Love, Julie & Julia, and The Time Traveler’s Wife. With its generally favorable reviews, The Help could very well join those films and become a late-summer success.
4. 30 Minutes or Less: $16 million
The umpteenth R-rated comedy this summer, this film stars Danny McBride and Nick Swardson as two criminals who, in order to raise enough money to hire an assassin, kidnap a pizza delivery guy (Jesse Eisenberg) and force him to rob a bank — while wearing a bomb on his chest. Aziz Ansari costars as the pizza guy’s best buddy. This is a hard one to call, as I’m not sure whether young adults will be intrigued by the movie’s dark, kooky plot, or simply find it off-putting. The film re-teams Eisenberg with Zombieland director Ruben Fleisher, and that horror comedy opened to a surprising $24.7 million two years ago. But reviews for 30 Minutes or Less have been mediocre, and small-time crooks robbing a bank doesn’t feature quite the same epic pizazz as a few lone survivors shotgunning a mob of flesh-eating zombies.
5. The Smurfs: $13 million
The PG comedy fell only 42 percent last week. With no new moviegoing options for small kids, The Smurfs should hold up even a bit better this weekend. Bow down to your blue overlords.
6. Glee: The 3D Concert Movie: $9 million
Another wild card here, as it’s difficult to know whether the Gleeks are passionate enough to follow the New Directions to the big screen (and pay those exorbitant 3-D prices). This $8.5 million concert pic, which is playing at 2,040 3-D locations, shouldn’t come close to matching the debuts of Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour ($31.1 million) or Justin Bieber: Never Say Never ($29.5 million), and I’m thinking it won’t even surpass the opening of Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience ($12.5 million). I simply don’t believe the Gleeks possess the same preteen fervor that fueled those other movies, but I could be proven wrong.
I liked most of it … didn’t love it. James Franco did an excellent job in this movie; I give 5-stars to him. I was pleased to see him do so well. The monkey ending is what blew it for me. I’d see it once, which I did, but won’t see it again.
America loves monkey crap.
James Franco was awful. I always thought he was a bad actor, but he was comatose in this. You know its bad when you out-acted by a CGI chimp.
The best parts of the movie were the interaction between the characters played by James Franco and John Lithgow. The movie developed well until John’s character died. I felt it lost a bit after the monkey’s went ape, so to speak.
Caesar was a lot more interesting than any of the human characters.
I think “The Help” is going to shock the industry by being the weekend’s # 1 film. I smell a mini-”The Blind Side.”
Sure hope not, go Apes go!
“Audiences are going bananas for this well-reviewed action film, which opened to a better-than-expected $54.8 million last week. ” Rise of the Planet of the Apes is NOT an action movie, seriously. It is a beautifully sad science fiction masterpiece… yeah I said it, what?!
Favorite movie of the year so far
My Predictions:
1.) The Help $25
2.) Rise of the Planet of the Apes $23
3.) Final Destination 5 3-D $19
4.) 30 Minutes or Less $15
5.) The Smurfs $11
6.) Cowboys and Aliens $8
7.) Glee: The 3-D Concert Movie $5
8.) Harry Potter 8 $3.5
Those are some very out there predictions.
According to your, only two people are going to see The Help and 1/3 of a person is going to see Harry Potter this entire weekend.
LOL you win at life!
Oh.
*rolls eyes*
@Woot your attempt at humor failed.
I see Harry Potter doing double that, don’t see The Help being number one since it’d have lost several audience members due to being released on a Wednesday, a surprise number 2 maybe.
And you forgot about Crazy Stupid Love.
My predictions:
1) Glee: The 3-D Concert Movie $212 million
2) Everything else $0
The Glee zombies will take over the theaters.
Glee zombies?
Rise of the Planet of the Apes deserves to remain in the #1 spot this weekend. It’s a popcorn movie, but it has intelligence and ideas, unlike the moronic Green Lantern and Transformers 3. I can’t believe they’re coming out with a Final Destination 5. I’m really hoping it flops, because the filmmakers said that if it does well, they will film FD 6 and 7 back to back, and we certainly don’t need more of those films polluting the art of cinema. If FD 5 is a hit, that will prove that most moviegoers today are idiots for paying to see the same movie they’ve seen four other times. By this movie getting greenlit, that shows that the horror genre is unfortunately losing quality because simpletons just want blood and gore thrown at them instead of having a good story and smart scares, like the original Halloween and Scream. It’s a shame that The Smurfs movie is doing well. I can’t believe these screenwriters still can’t get through their heads that a children’s movie can be both fun and well-written, just look at the many Pixar movies, except Cars 2. Children’s movies like The Smurfs and Alvin and Chipmunks are part of the reason why this next generation will be stupid, because the audiences will laugh at the jokes no matter how bad they are. If Hollywood continues to make kids movies like The Smurfs by the time I have children, then I’ll just wait until they’re 13 to let them go to the movies, because there’s no way I’m sitting through that unfunny trash that will most likely kill my brain cells.
Don’t worry, your brain cells are going to be just fine.
It could be worse – they could all skip the Smurfs and bring their small toddler AND crying baby to see Planet of the Apes, like the morons sitting behind me at the showing I went to last weekend.
Hopefully you killed them.
Um, hopefully not.
I think that it will be number 1 again this weekend. It’s a great movie with a good story line. Word of month will keep it on top, I’ve yet to hear anything negative from the people who have seen it.
My Predictions: 1)Final Destination 5 30 MILL. 2)Rise Of the planet of the Apes 28 MILL. 3)30 Minutes or Less 19 MILL. 4)The Help 17 MILL. 5)The Smurfs 10 MILL.
Loved Rise but hoping The Help will be #1.
Glee is bad enough on TV. Why the hell would I want to go see it on the big screen?
It’s a concert movie, not an adaptation of the show to the big screen (if that makes sense).
Well, I can see why your name is Grumpster.
I loved the Smurfs. I saw it for my 60th birthday with my 2 kids. It was like going down memory lane. It brought back memories of Saturday morning cartoons when they were litte. The movie was great. I would recomend it highly but not in 3D.
The biggest problem with the Glee movie is that Glee is a pretty multi-generational show and I don’t see older people going to see this in theatres. I saw the concert live and absolutely loved it so I will definitely be seeing it this weekend.
Final Destination 5- 33.5 million
Apes- 26.5million
The Help- 22.4million
30 Minutes or Less- 19 million
Smurfs- 12.2 million
I think what people need to remember about the Glee movie is that its not going to appeal to a wider audience such as Apes and The Help. The movie seems to be for the fans and (shocker) not everyone watches Glee. If you don’t watch the show you’re not going to go see it plain and simple. I think the movie will do well overseas, I believe the show airs in 50 + countries. I think it was too premature for a movie right now, I will give the Glee Cast credit for pumping the movie up so well, it seemed like a promo was on every 5 minutes, (Sn: Is it me or does Lea Michele seems to be EVERYWHERE nowadays).