Weekend Forecast for July 1-3, 2011
By Reagen Sulewski
July 1, 2011
These films are inherently self-limiting, and seem to be irrelevant to the actual star in them. Gomez is as good as any other, and no better than them, with her only other major role, Ramona and Beezus, being largely irrelevant in the box office charts. Monte Carlo looks to be another entry in that genre, earning about $8 million opening weekend and disappearing shortly thereafter.
Meanwhile, these are but blips compared to Transformers: Brick in the Wall, which opened to $37.3 million on Wednesday, including the de rigueur $8 million from midnight sneaks. While this is is only about two-thirds of the opening day of the second film in this series, Transformers: This Movie Blows, it also didn't open with the same calendar configuration and each one of those behaves differently for the July 4th weekend. The last time we had one like this, it was War of the Worlds' time to own it, as it started with $21 million on Wednesday and $112 million through July 4th. That same ratio would give us a $199 million seven-day total for Transformers, or more or less what people have been predicting for this. Things could break about $10 million in either direction, but much more than that would be a surprise. Over three days, Transformers: Wish I Weren't Here should bring in about $105 million.
Last week's tale of machinery rum amok, Cars 2, opened to a Pixar-standard (leaving out the anomalous Toy Story 3) $66 million despite the worst reviews in the company's history. The difference of that last fact to the film's word-of-mouth is likely to be… nil, as people knew the score going in – they were there to make their kids happy and get a preview of what toys they needed to buy. Look for a second weekend of $39 million.
The real surprise was Bad Teacher's $31 million opening, which defied its bad reviews, and the fact that black comedies rarely see strong opening weekends. Few who saw the film felt it lived up to its outstanding trailer and ads, which will probably keep it from following in the footsteps of this year's other raunchy female comedy, Bridesmaids. I'd look for something close to a $16 million second weekend.
Green Lantern cratered in its second frame, dropping over two-thirds of its first weekend total, and will only just cross the $100 million plateau this weekend, either Saturday or Sunday. Note to Warner Bros.: make your superhero movies not suck, please. For its third weekend, this should drop to around $8 million.
That just ahead of where Super 8 should wind up, as it too cruises over the $100 million mark, though with a much lower set of expectations placed upon it, thanks to its much smaller budget. It'll earn about $7 million this week, on track to around $125 million. The last relevant film to the box office charts is Mr. Popper's Penguins, which has driven some very large spikes into Jim Carrey's career as an unbeatable comedy machine. It'll earn about $6 million this weekend, on the way to around $70 million total.
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Forecast: Weekend of July 1-3, 2011
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of
Sites |
Changes in Sites
from Last |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
|
4,013
|
New
|
104.7
|
|
2
|
Cars 2
|
4,115
|
0
|
38.8
|
|
3
|
Larry Crowne
|
2,972
|
New
|
16.7
|
|
4
|
Bad Teacher
|
3,049
|
0
|
15.5
|
|
5
|
Green Lantern
|
3,280
|
-536
|
7.9
|
|
6
|
Super 8
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
7.2
|
|
7
|
Mr. Popper's Penguins
|
2,861
|
-481
|
6.6
|
|
8
|
X-Men: First Class
|
1,602
|
-1,031
|
4.2
|
|
9
|
Bridesmaids
|
1,388
|
-643
|
4.1
|
|
10
|
The Hangover Part II
|
1,568
|
-1,187
|
3.4
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
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