Weekend Forecast for June 1-3, 2007
By Reagen Sulewski
June 1, 2007
The third new film in wide release is Gracie, a film about a girl soccer player trying to break onto a boys team, back when people both cared about soccer and thought girls couldn't play sports. The lead role is played by Carly Schroeder, who you probably wouldn't know if you aren't a 12-year-old girl or Hilary Duff's stalker (she had a long running role on Lizzie McGuire). Supporting roles go to Dermot Mulroney and Elizabeth Shue as her parents (with her brother and noted soccer fiend Andrew Shue, late of Melrose Place, in a small role) and a variety of no-name inoffensively good looking young actors in other roles.
This really doesn't feel like a Bend it Like Beckham in the making, to make the obvious comparison. For one thing, the critical support isn't there, and the novelty factor has worn off. It's also a bit darker in tone, which somewhat kills its mass market appeal. And of course, the final dagger is that it's releasing on just 1,100 screens. It should see about $3 million of business this weekend.
The weekend still belongs to the Pirates, with At World's End, the third instalment of the franchise grossing a humongous yet still strangely underwhelming $153 million over the Memorial Day weekend. The second largest weekend ever just doesn't seem that outstanding in light of May's run, and this means that it did just a little bit more in four days what the second did in three.
This is not meant to suggest in any way that the film is in trouble. However, as we've seen from May's other megabusters, that first weekend is everything, and you can't count on any legs at all. It appears that those who said that Dead Man's Chest was too much were on the money, and enthusiasm for the series had peaked there.
Films traditionally fall off the cliff following Memorial Day weekend, and given that this is a front-loaded sequel, well, it should be an impressive drop to say the least. I think we're looking at a second weekend of about $50 million, which would still push it north of $225 million total. However, that would put it almost a full weekend behind the second outing of this film, and puts a cap on the film's earning total somewhere south of $350 million.
Similar sentiments can be expressed for Shrek the Third, which burst out of the gates but proved to have only one bullet in its gun. It dropped over 50% in a comparable period over the holiday weekend, an almost unthinkable total for a family film with a pedigree like this one. This appears to have been a bit of a misfire for DreamWorks Animation, though most of us probably wish our misfires can gross $200 million after ten days. Look for a total of about $21 million for Shrek in its third weekend, which also means the film will come in under the $350 million mark. Combine this with Spider-Man 3's likely fall to about $7 million, and May's three hotshot films all followed a similar pattern – with a world beating opening and zero follow-through.
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Forecast: Weekend of June 1-3, 2007
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of
Sites |
Changes in Sites
from Last |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
|
4,362
|
0
|
50.7
|
|
2
|
Knocked Up
|
2,871
|
New
|
22.4
|
|
3
|
Shrek the Third
|
4,109
|
-63
|
21.3
|
|
4
|
Mr. Brooks
|
2,453
|
New
|
10.1
|
|
5
|
Spider-Man 3
|
3,402
|
-321
|
7.5
|
|
6
|
Gracie
|
1,164
|
New
|
2.9
|
|
7
|
Waitress
|
605
|
+95
|
2.2
|
|
8
|
Bug
|
1,661
|
0
|
1.9
|
|
9
|
28 Weeks Later
|
1,121
|
-891
|
1.5
|
|
10
|
Disturbia
|
1,035
|
-597
|
1.2
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
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