Friday, September 23, 2011

Box Office Forecaster - 09/23/11

I still can’t believe how much money “The Lion King” made last weekend. It’s amazing to think that a movie that came out 17 years ago and is easily available on DVD and Blu-Ray could attract such big numbers based solely on the fact that you could watch it in 3D. It really shouldn’t be that surprising as Disney has been re-releasing their older movies for years.  It also would’ve helped that a lot of parents who saw the movie as kids when it originally came out thought their kids would enjoy seeing it on the big screen as well.  This won’t help those moviegoers like myself who are tired of seeing everything released in 3D, as the big numbers it had last weekend will encourage other studio’s to release some of their older movies in 3D. I can’t wait for the inevitable 3D release of “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace”….

There’s four new releases this weekend. The biggest release will probably be “Moneyball” starring Brad Pitt. I did a post a few months ago about how I was curious to see how it would be received by general audiences. Obviously baseball fans will be interested but will non-baseball fans even care about a movie based on how a mildly successful baseball team was built (and how they’re brutal today). I’m a sucker for sports movies so I’ll be checking it out this weekend. The other interesting release is the action movie “Abduction” starring Taylor Lautner. This will be Lautner’s first starring movie outside of the “Twilight” franchise. It will be interesting to see if not only his Twilight fans will go see him but young male audiences since that would be the film’s demographic for a movie like this.

Here’s what the top 5 could look like this weekend:

#5 – Drive
Weekend Prediction – $7.8million
Gross to Date – $15.6million (Week 2)

#4 – Contagion
Weekend Prediction - $8.8million
Gross to Date – $48.5million(Week 3)

#3 – Abduction
Weekend Prediction - $9.5million
Gross to Date – (Week 1)

#2 – Moneyball
Weekend Prediction - $17million
Gross to Date – (Week 1)

#1 – The Lion King 3D
Weekend Prediction - $19.9million
Gross to Date - $39.5 million(Week 2)

Skip It
If someone would’ve came up to you in 1988 and said “hey let’s go see that new Kirk Cameron action movie”, what would your reaction be? You probably would’ve punched your friend for even making such a dumb recommendation. Remember that this weekend if a friend recommends seeing this.

Best Bet
There’s not much more I can say about this movie besides that I hope it ends up being a hit. There’s been some great movies the last few weeks like “Drive” and “Warrior” that haven’t been doing that well despite receiving some of the best reviews of the year. I really hope this movie can beat a 17 year old cartoon.

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