Image Credit: Greg Wilson
Four new wide releases enter theaters this weekend — rom-com The Five-Year Engagement, kiddie flick The Pirates! Band of Misfits, literary thriller The Raven, and Jason Statham’s Safe — but will any of them be able to take out Think Like A Man, which ended The Hunger Games‘ reign atop the box office last week?
Check out my predictions below:
1. The Five-Year Engagement – $20 million
The Jason Segel/Emily Blunt romantic comedy is the latest 2012 release to target women, and if the success of The Vow, The Lucky One, and Think Like A Man are any indication, females should turn out this weekend as well. The Five-Year Engagement, which was produced by Universal for a modest $30 million, has been framed as a companion to Bridesmaids, which opened in May 2011 to $26.2 million before grossing $169 million overall. If the hot pink and white color scheme of the advertisements didn’t make that connection clear, then the fact that every inch of marketing includes the words “FROM THE PRODUCER OF BRIDESMAIDS” should. Oh yeah — it’s also about a wedding.
Tracking for the film has been encouraging in the weeks leading to its release, and while it hasn’t garnered quite the same amount of buzz as the ultra-bawdy Bridesmaids did last year, its prospects are pretty rosy. Jason Segel has become a more familiar face thanks to the success of The Muppets and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and although Emily Blunt is not a proven box office draw, she comes across nicely in advertisements. Sure, The Lucky One will eat up a bit of the film’s core female demographic, but guys should turn up in higher volumes for a straight-up comedy like Engagement, which stars Segel as well as Parks and Recreation‘s Chris Pratt. Playing in 2,936 theaters, the wedding comedy may pick up about $20 million and find legs in the weeks to come.
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