Weekend Forecast for October 18-20, 2013
By Reagen Sulewski
October 18, 2013
The result seems to be a bit of a reverse caper film with a high dose of comedy (Arnold in particular seems to be having a lot of fun with this role). While not quite The Expendables, the cast is a bit deeper than the top two names, with Jim Caviezel, Sam Neill, Vincent D'Onofrio, Vinnie Jones and 50 Cent, among others rounding out the list of villains and/or inmates in the plan. The main thing we're expected to pay attention to, however, is the Stallone/Schwarzenegger pairing, which feels a bit like DeNiro and Pacino finally appearing together many years too late.
While Stallone can directly point to The Expendables as a success of late, Schwarzenegger has found the transition back to acting a little more difficult. January's The Last Stand was a massive flop and has sent him reeling back to previous franchises (including Twins!) for safety. Reviews for this aren't great, but it's a fairly review-proof property. More concerning is how irrelevant the film looks, and I'd expect this to open to around $9 million.
The WikiLeaks scandal gets its own movie this week in The Fifth Estate, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange. Director Bill Condon takes the events surrounding the release of volumes and volumes of secret international documents and attempts to turn it into a potboiling spy thriller. That's probably dressing the story up by a fair margin, although there's certainly some intrigue in how Assange's organization received these documents and how and why they decided to release them. It also focuses in large part on the relationships between the people involved in WikiLeaks, and how they were strained by those activities.
The Fifth Estate debuted at the Toronto Film Festival to middling reception, saving perhaps Cumberbatch's performance. While the book the film is based on is largely negative towards WikiLeaks, and Condon himself has indicated he considers the organization dangerous, Cumberbatch's acting has been praised for complexity and ambiguity. These are not the things that make a box office hit, even as Cumberbatch's fame grows. I'd look for a very modest $5 million this weekend.
Gravity looks poised to win a third straight weekend after its second weekend showed that it has significantly positive word-of-mouth. Dropping less than 25% gave it one of the largest non-franchise second weekends in history, and helped it scream past the $100 million milestone. It appears to be the rare film that demands to be seen on the big screen, and that is driving its business as the weeks proceed. I'd expect $32 million this weekend, and a close approach to $175 million.
Captain Phillips made a solid debut in second place with $26 million, and the Tom Hanks high seas drama makes a good case for legs itself. It's going to need it to become a serious Oscar contender as has been suggested, and about $18 million this weekend should suffice.
The fourth weekend of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 sees it inching towards $100 million, and struggling to match the figures of the first film in the series. It hasn't performed badly by any stretch, but many had hoped for a bit more from a popular sequel. Give it about $9 million this weekend.
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Forecast: Weekend of October 18-20, 2013
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of
Sites |
Changes in Sites
from Last |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
Gravity
|
3,280
|
+160
|
32.4
|
|
2
|
Carrie
|
3,157
|
New
|
26.1
|
|
3
|
Captain Phillips
|
3,020
|
0
|
18.1
|
|
4
|
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
|
3,602
|
-272
|
8.9
|
|
5
|
Escape Plan
|
2,883
|
New
|
8.8
|
|
6
|
The Fifth Estate
|
1,769
|
New
|
5.2
|
|
7
|
Prisoners
|
2,160
|
-695
|
2.1
|
|
8
|
Runner Runner
|
1,665
|
-491
|
2.0
|
|
9
|
Machete Kills
|
2,538
|
0
|
1.6
|
|
10
|
Rush
|
1,192
|
-938
|
1.3
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
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