Weekend Forecast for January 13-15, 2012
By Reagen Sulewski
January 13, 2012
Lastly, there's the film that brings us the collaboration between Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton that we've apparently been asking for all these years. Joyful Noise brings us into the world of competitive gospel choir, which I bet you didn't even know was a thing. Set in a small town in Georgia, so you know where this film is actually going to be popular, the film pits the two leads against each other as rivals within the same choir who are going to have to work together to win the bZzzzzzzzzzzz, oh sorry, I think I dozed off for a second there.
Look, you're either into films where musical performances (and distinguishing ourselves here from musicals) take the lead role or you're not. And for the most part, you're in the “not” category, as films about performers have a poor track record. Think Fame, or the two other films from Joyful Noise's director Todd Graff, Camp and Bandslam, which together grossed $6.8 million. This film's overt religiosity should at least give it a built in audience, although that's also limiting in some ways, and Sister Act was many, many years ago (remember when Whoopi Goldberg sold movie tickets? That's bizarre to think about). I'd look for this to pull in about $7 million this weekend.
In a moment of weakness, the North American movie going public pushed The Devil Inside to the top of the box office last weekend with a truly remarkable $33 million start. But like jumping into a bear pit, they immediately regretted that decision, voting it to be one of the six films ever to get an F Cinemascore, which you almost have to try to do. While weekday numbers aren't always the clearest indicator of legs, it's already fallen to fourth, behind films that earned a third of what it did on the weekend. Average second week (or third, in the case of Christmas week releases) drop offs of films that got F Cinemascores are around 61%, and this could be in line for an even worse one than that. Viewers seem to be in the mood to punish this film, and I think that means about $9 million this weekend.
That gives the floor back to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which carried over its strong run over Christmas into January, dropping by less than a third and running its total to $175 million mid-week. It's looking to have a slow trickle out of theaters and should end up as the unquestioned victor of Christmas 2011. Give it about $14 million this weekend.
Christmas carryovers with significant business abound still, with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows due to pull in about $9 million, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo about $7 million, and three animal-centric films, War Horse, We Bought a Zoo and Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 (A natural grouping, amirite?) just under $6 million. Add in a slightly expanding Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and we've got an uncommonly deep slate of films for January.
|
Forecast: Weekend of January 13-15, 2012
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of
Sites |
Changes in Sites
from Last |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
Beauty and the Beast 3D
|
2,625
|
New
|
17.6
|
|
2
|
Contraband
|
2,863
|
New
|
15.2
|
|
3
|
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
|
3,346
|
-209
|
14.3
|
|
4
|
The Devil Inside
|
2,551
|
+266
|
9.8
|
|
5
|
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
|
3,155
|
-448
|
8.6
|
|
6
|
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
|
2,674
|
-276
|
7.4
|
|
7
|
Joyful Noise
|
2,735
|
New
|
7.3
|
|
8
|
War Horse
|
2,856
|
+73
|
5.9
|
|
9
|
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-wrecked
|
2,849
|
-576
|
5.7
|
|
10
|
We Bought a Zoo
|
2,909
|
-261
|
5.5
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
Print this column
