*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.
Sorry this is a little late, as I’ve been super busy this week. Luckily, it’s one of the slowest box office weeks of the year and there is little to look forward to.
You can bet the farm that “The Blind Side” will win the weekend for the first time on its third try and continue it’s epic run towards $200 million. “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” should be your runner-up and it may get as low as five or six before you see a new film.
Miramax is going for broke with the drama “Everybody’s Fine.” I thought the studio might start limited and try to trick people into thinking this would be one of those good, Oscar movies but they are sticking a Christmas tree on the poster and getting it into every Regal Cinemas in the country. Will it work? It should finish with $5 million for the weekend.
In case you don’t know, the weekend after Thanksgiving is always deadly at the box office and studios rarely open worthwhile product. Last year gave us “Punisher: War Zone” at $4.3 million and the year before gave us “Awake” with $6.1 million. How someone pitched an action movie with a catatonic lead character and got it made is pretty incredible and beyond me.
Sony’s “Armored” fits the action bill this year but a low screen count may mean that not even the wizards at Sony marketing can help this one. I saw the trailer for this and “Takers” back-to-back in the theater recently and I swear to God Matt Dillon phoned in the same performance and lines in both. I want to say $4 million but Sony is so good at turning these into overachievers that I’ll say $8 million instead.
Lionsgate also goes wide with their once-potential Oscar hero “Brothers.” This type of plate-breaking drama can do alright at this time of year and the cast is certainly starry. But surely no one thinks it looks good right? I’m giving this one $6 million.
Some company called Full Circle is releasing “Transylmania” on 1,007 screens and you can expect it to open nowhere near the top 10. $500,000 is what I’m guessing and maybe everyone involved goes bankrupt and never bothers us again.
The only real fireworks will be found in limited release where “Up in the Air” could earn as much as $1 million on 15 screens.
What are you guys seeing this weekend? Catching up on your Netflix queue?
Comments
6 responses to “FRIDAY FORECAST: Thanksgiving leftovers and new turkeys”
Netflix queue indeed. Watching Solaris (2002) and Brand Upon the Brain! – trying to catch up on a few films I’ve missed from the decade.
Well, mostly I’ll be working, but I snagged some stuff from Blockbuster last night. I got three foreign films I missed this decade (The Lives of Others, Downfall, Cache) and a couple of films I want to revisit before making my decade-end list (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Darjeeling Limited). I saw The Messenger on Thursday, which was wonderful, and if I do see a movie in theaters this weekend, it will most certainly just be a second helping of Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Saw “Brothers” yesterday, which despite some flaws, I ended up really liking a lot. More than I ever expected to anyway.
“Everybody’s Fine” just never looked appealing, as much as I love De Niro. And I won’t be going anywhere near “Transylmania”.
” How someone pitched an action movie with a catatonic lead character and got it made is pretty incredible and beyond me.”
It’s not exactly the same but have you forgotten “The Rear Window” or “Disrubia”? In any case, that was a pretty closeminded sentence,
Not only did I think Brothers looked good, I saw it yesterday and it is good. Not perfect, the editing was a bit choppy in places, but the performances for the most part were better than good. I’ve loved Natalie Portman since The Professional and she’s wonderful, and who knew Tobey Maguire had such dark places to go to.
I saw the original a couple of years ago and, overall, this one packed the same punch for me.
Thanks alot – your answer solved all my problems after several days srgtulging