Weekend Forecast for November 20-22, 2015

By Reagen Sulewski

November 20, 2015

Once more into the fray.

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Ads for the film are heavy on the Rogen, emphasizing the culture clash between his obvious Jewishness and his Catholic fiancee (played by Jillian Bell, last seen as the hilariously cynical antagonist in 22 Jump Street), with other supporting roles going to Lizzy Caplan, Helene Yorke, Mindy Kaling, Michael Shannon, James Franco and Miley Cyrus (the latter two as themselves). It's a film much in the spirit of Superbad and Pineapple Express, but is catering to an audience that's probably much less interested in that kind of film than it used to be.

It would have been interesting to see how well The Interview actually would have done last year as a comparison, but we can look back to This Is The End, which took apocalyptic humor to a $21 million opening weekend in the summer of 2013. The hook for this film isn't as good and the reviews not as glowing, so I don't see this competing with that number. It's not impossible to see it having a deep run through Christmas if the word-of-mouth is there, however, and a start of $16 million might be enough to get it there.

Lastly, we have Secret In Their Eyes, a remake of an Argentinean film from a few years back that won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. It stars Julia Roberts as an FBI agent whose daughter goes missing. Along with a fellow agent (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) and a District Attorney (Nicole Kidman), she investigates the disappearance but finds only dead ends. After sitting cold for 13 years, a new lead opens the case and they work to uncover the horrifying secret behind why she's been missing.




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If this sounds a bit generic for a Hollywood thriller with stars of this significance, well, you're not wrong. That's in part because the original film was filled with meaning due to its connections to Argentina's Dirty War in the '70s, which saw the abduction and murder of thousands of dissidents during the 1970s. Obviously, that connection is lacking for a US-based film, so it remains to be seen what reasonable change they've made to the film to justify it. The answer from the reviews seems to be that they haven't managed to, whatever it is, and this remake is rather pointless and a slog.

The last remaining hope here is star power, but the film itself seems to downplay that by dressing its stars down. That may not even be the issue, as its biggest star hasn't been responsible for a big hit in ages. The closest thing would be 2010's Eat Pray Love, with a respectable $80 million. That, of course, was a hopeful, positive film and this is basically the opposite of that. I'd look for just $7 million here.

Spectre loses its top spot at the box office after two weeks and about $140 million, but there's little to feel bad about, as it's within spitting distance of passing every other Bond film besides Skyfall. Worldwide box office is also solid, putting it at nearly $600 million already. The reported $245 million budget (Why? How?) presents some challenges relative to other Bond films, but we're still into hugely positive territory. It should bring in about $18 million this weekend.

The Peanuts Movie had a solid hold with $24 million and is set to cross the $100 million milestone this weekend. The market is there for a sequel if it's wanted, but I expect this is a case where one and done is a more prudent course of action. A lot of this response to the film is that they haven't abused the memory of the strip and the specials, and a whole series runs the risk of digging into crasser material. Give it $14 million this frame.


Forecast: Weekend of November 20-22, 2015
Rank
Film
Number of
Sites
Changes in Sites
from Last
Estimated
Gross ($)
1 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 4,175 New 133.2
2 Spectre 3,659 -270 18.1
3 The Night Before 2,960 New 17.6
4 The Peanuts Movie 3,671 -231 14.4
5 Secret In Their Eyes 2,392 New 7.0
6 Love the Coopers 2,603 No change 4.7
7 The Martian 2,086 -702 4.4
8 Goosebumps 1,787 -1,018 2.8
9 The 33 2,452 No change 2.8
10 Bridge of Spies 1,532 -1,156 2.7

Continued:       1       2

     


 
 

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