Weekend Forecast for March 19-21, 2010

By Reagen Sulewski

March 19, 2010

We're like totally in a relationship and stuff!

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After Law is severely injured during a repossession, he's implanted with organs of his own against his will. Soon he finds himself unable to do his job, seeing himself under the knife someday, and decides to fight back against the system. With guns and karate. It's a time honored method.

Prospects look grim for this for a few reasons. Aside from the subject matter being a bit out there for most audiences, there's the rather chaotic and nonsensical ads that are being presented to us. It can't seem to make up its mind as to whether is a comedy or a gritty action film, and while that combo sometimes works, it's not being sold that way. Meanwhile, Law is still looking for his first real solo hit. I don't think this is the one to do it, and it's got bomb written all over it. Watch for an opening weekend of about $9 million.

Expanding this week is The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski's political thriller about a former British PM's role in an international scandal and a very thinly veiled criticism of Tony Blair. Starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan and Kim Catrall, it's found moderate success in limited release and goes to what's called national release with around 800 screens this weekend. Don't expect much more than $3 million though, based on its current performance.




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The likelihood, then, is that Alice in Wonderland will take its third consecutive weekend at the top of the box office. Now over $225 million in just two weeks, Tim Burton's 3D take on Lewis Carroll is easily, and by easily, I mean by a factor of two, the highest grossing film of the year, and will likely be that film until sometime in late May (*cough*IronMan2*cough*cough*). It's really grabbed that 3D mantle laid out for it by Avatar, and proven that audiences really are embracing this new technology. Look for it to add about $35 million this weekend.

None of last weekend's new films made much of an impact, unless you count their impacts on studios' bottom lines. Green Zone is most notable in that respect, opening to just $15 million on a $100 million budget and the star power of Matt Damon. Despite The Hurt Locker finally finding an audience post Oscars, people are just not ready to deal with Iraq War movies on a serious level. It's doubtful this film will pick up any steam from word-of-mouth at this point and should sink away to around a $50 million total.

She's Out of My League's $9 million isn't about to make Jay Baruchel a star, but it's a respectable number for a film like this and a leading man like him, so there's no need for him to hide his head in shame or anything. It, Shutter Island, and Remember Me ought to come in with about $5 to 6 million this weekend.


Forecast: Weekend of March 19-21, 2010
Rank
Film
Number of
Sites
Changes in Sites
from Last
Estimated
Gross ($)
1 Alice in Wonderland 3,739 +11 34.8
2 The Bounty Hunter 3,074 New 24.7
3 Diary of a Wimpy Kid 3,077 New 19.4
4 Repo Men 2,522 New 8.8
5 Green Zone 3,004 +1 8.6
6 She's Out of My League 2,958 +2 6.0
7 Shutter Island 2,704 -652 5.7
8 Remember Me 2,215 +3 5.0
9 Our Family Wedding 1,609 +4 4.5
10 Avatar 1,236 -482 4.4

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