Weekend Predictions: 05-29-09

by Furious
May 29th, 2009

So far this year, the biggest overall weekend at the box office was back on January 16 when Paul Blart: Mall Cop took the world by storm. The total spent on movies that weekend was $192,903,837. There’s a chance this weekend could top that.

Up is the widest release this weekend, in 3,766 theaters. It’s also the tenth feature put out by Pixar, and their name has basically become the gold standard in computer animation. And they’re really trying to make a point that their name is bigger than the subject of whatever movie they put forth. Cars was about a car that got arrested and had to repave a road, Ratatouille was about a rat that wanted to be a chef, and WALL-E was about a robot cleaning up the garbage left behind on an Earth abandoned by humans. Those aren’t your usual topics for big-budget animated movies …

Popularity: 33% [?]

Read More »

Weekend Predictions: 05-15-09

by Furious
May 15th, 2009

You’d think that Hollywood studios are always competing against each other, but this month’s evidence shows that it’s really a coordinated dance. The big movie season kicked off with X-Men Origins: Wolverine on May 1st. That was a Fox release. The only new competition that weekend was from Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Warner Bros.), which aimed for a totally different audience than Wolverine. The next weekend Paramount released Star Trek, the only other new wide release was a tiny comedy from tiny distributor Summit Entertainment. This weekend Sony is releasing Angels & Demons, the only wide release. Next weekend has Paramount releasing a comedy, Fox a family movie, and Warner Bros. a big scifi actioner. The last week of May brings a Disney animated movie and a Universal horrorfest. All the studios get their chance to have a week to themselves without any new competition.

Sony’s big chance comes in the …

Popularity: 51% [?]

Read More »

Weekend Predictions: 04-24-09

by Furious
April 24th, 2009

Let’s say you were traveling through time. It’s one of those situations where you just kind of slip into a new time period, not sure where you’ve ended up. You ask the first person you see to tell you the date. Now this person, they’re a bit of a smartass and instead of giving you a straight answer, they give you a couple clues. So rather than just being decent and telling you the date, they tell you this: “Today is the day these three movies were released: One is about underground street fighting competitions. Another is an erotic thriller. And the third is a heartwarming musical biopic.”

Instead of popping this smartass upside the head like they deserve, you sit down and you think. Maybe it’s January 1991. Lionheart, that was about a dude that got caught up in the seedy world of street fighting. But Sleeping with the Enemy …

Popularity: 28% [?]

Read More »

Weekend Predictions: 01-30-09

by Furious
January 30th, 2009

This will most likely be a poor weekend for movies. If you hadn’t heard, “The Big Game” is this Sunday. “The Big Game” is the Super Bowl, but since the NFL protects it’s intellectual properties like no other, you’ll hear “The Big Game” a whole lot more than Super Bowl. They tried to trademark “The Big Game” too, but that was going too far. Since the Super Bowl effectively makes Sunday the day the Earth stands still, probably going to cut into box office returns.

Check out the prediction calculations here.

The biggest new release of the weekend is Taken. The difference between this and the Luc Besson-Jason Statham actioners is that Liam Neeson is a fairly respected actor and gives the movie a little more significance. Besson has been quite prolific in the B-grade action genre since he retired from directing. It’s a pity he quit directing, but

…

Popularity: 14% [?]

Read More »

Weekend Report: Mall Cop Makes Good

by Furious
January 21st, 2009

The biggest movie this weekend was, as Paul Harvey said, “something called Paul Blart: Mall Cop.” Somehow this movie exceeded everyone’s expectations, including Sony Pictures. It was the only new movie that is really accessible to all demographics and it took advantage of it.

Paul Blart made me look pretty stupid for predicting $13,028,182. The total for the three day weekend came to $31,832,636. Unfortunately my formula is unable to account for the tastes of American moviegoers. One weekend it’s an aging actor in what could be his career-defining role (Gran Torino), the next it’s a critically-bashed Die Hard-esque family comedy. Go figure. For those interested, blart is a portmanteau of the words blood and fart.

My Bloody Valentine 3-D came in third at $21,241,456. I nearly nailed this prediction, off just 4%. Valentine was released in digital 3-D in 1,033 theaters, the most ever for the format, and

…

Popularity: 14% [?]

Read More »

Assessing The Weekend: Punisher Punishes The Box Office

by Furious
December 10th, 2008

What do you get when you have one new wide release and the previous five week’s picked over corpses? You get the fourth smallest weekend of the year at $76,677,578- a 50% decrease from the previous weekend.

The only new release of any size was Punisher: War Zone. Even though 2004’s The Punisher didn’t do much even with John Travolta’s name, Lionsgate felt it was wise to give the franchise a makeover without having any recognizable names. When Dominic West, Ray Stevenson, and Wayne Knight are the biggest names, you better have a damned good movie if you expect to make any money. But Punisher: War Zone is not a good movie. It pulled in just $4,271,451 with the only competition coming from movies released up to five weeks ago. War Zone’s weekend total equates to about

…

Popularity: 15% [?]

Read More »

Assessing The Weekend: I Was A Teenage Emo Vampire

by Furious
November 25th, 2008

I guess my prediction of the second biggest weekend of the year was wrong. Overall, $156,677,936 was spent at the box office this weekend, making the it eight biggest of the year.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Read More »

Assessing The Weekend: The Formula Breaks Down

by Furious
November 11th, 2008

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa crushed my $42 million prediction with a $63,106,589 weekend and Role Models bested me by almost $5 million.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Read More »

Weekend Predictions: 10-17-08

by Furious
October 18th, 2008

I’m going to go out on a limb and say Beverly Hills Chihuahua won’t dominate the box office again. It’s possible it could do $10.5 million, but it’s got to drop off at some point.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Read More »