By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Friday Estimates by Klady (analysis by poland)
It looks like everything in the Top Five will slightly underperform the guesstimates out there going into the weekend. But nothing shocking. There is still a tiny chance that Bridesmaids will end up beating Thor over the course of the weekend, despite what is now – scarily – a decent hold for a big opener. This puts Thor, again, in position as comparable to Hulk (69.7%), The Incredible Hulk (60.1%), and another Marvel classic, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (65.5%).
It’s a weird feeling when a 60% second weekend drop is no longer seen as a disaster. But that is how things have changed. Frontloading, as designed by the distributors. C. Nikki has been told by her keepers at Paramount that Thor will drop only 51%… oy. 58% is possible, but 59% or 60% seem more likely. I can’t find a movie with numbers that suggest a Friday drop of 65% leading to a weekend drop of 51%. We’ll see when the dust clears.
Back to Bridesmaids… a big Saturday uptick is what may or may not happen. It could surprise, if women can convince their boys that it’s going to be fun and make it a date night event. Thor is still probably a couple million beyond its grasp. But still… a solid start for a small movie in the second weekend of summer dumping ground. It’s interesting to see how the sales pitch of this being a female Hangover has worked for audiences, but irritated some self-hating feminists on principle.
A decent hold for Fast Five. It became the biggest domestic grosser of all the Fast/Furious films yesterday and was already the leader internationally. And it has at least another $50 million worldwide in it after this weekend… perhaps $100m, closing in on the $500 million worldwide mark where the big franchises live. Only the last two Bonds will have grossed more.
Something Jumping The Borrowed Broom has identical Friday-to-Friday drops.
And Priest 3D couldn’t be so bad… except that the birth of this thing was so very long and hard and expensive over time (adding 3D, etc). But Sony is pushing the movie hard overseas and it will be interesting to see if that pays off. It could be a case where it does $35 million here and $80 million overseas and everyone at Sony is pleased.
On the smaller release front, more soft numbers (thanks to VOD?) with Everything Must Go and Hesher doing about $3k a screen. Lionsgate’s Go For It is a complete tank.
Surprised Everything Must Go didn’t do a little better, considering the solid reviews and what I thought were effective TV ads. Those 200-screen releases just never work.
I couldn’t stay awake at “Priest.”
Had to do a matinee yesterday afternoon since there were no advance screenings in my neck of the woods, and not even the guy two rows in front of me with 2–count ’em–cell phones brightly illuminated during the entire movie (he must have been texting and surfing the internet simultaneously) could keep me from falling asleep.
I know I harp on accents a lot (especially Brits doing “American”), but Paul Bettany sounded just like an uber-butch Richard Thomas to me, lol.
Loved Bridesmaids. Priest was kind of a silly mess.
Bettany’s weird growl-speak was grating. I can usually find something ridiculously enjoyable in these post-apocalyptic action schlock fests. The action bits were fun, everything else was just empty junk.
I really thought Priest would open under 10 million.
Kudos to Screen Gems for once again managing a consistent track record even with inconceivable garbage.
Saw and enjoyed Everything Must Go and Bridesmaids, decided to hold off on Priest so as to not break the winning streak. As for the former, I dunno why Lionsgate decided to release two films in small (218 screens) release on the same weekend. As for Priest, I do think there is a small niche (dunno how big) that comes out for religious-themed horror or science fiction that would otherwise stay at home. It’s merely a way to explain how almost every even remotely religious-themed horror film that would otherwise be a dump ends up opened around $15-22 million (Priest, Legion, Stigmata, Last Exorcism, Haunting In Connecticut, etc). Just a theory (and Last Exorcism and Haunting In Connecticut are actually quite good), but it’s why I never expected Priest to outright tank.
“It looks like everything in the Top Five will slightly underperform the guesstimates out there going into the weekend. ”
Bullshit, Poland. Bridesmaids is actually beating the predictions and is doing so by a fairly large margin. Whern this thing lands at over $24 million for the weekened you’ll be the only one acting surprised.
Even a more conservative $20 million opening would still beat predictions.
Technically, if Bridesmaids is beating the predictions then shouldn’t everyone be acting surprised?
Wasn’t the offical Hot Blog prediction on BRIDESMAIDS like 25 million TOTAL???!?!
Based on that, I would conservatively call this opening beating predictions.
Proman/Maxim drama. Look at http://moviecitynews.com/weekend/… see 2 of the guessers going high on Bridesmaids. However, there are also 5 other titles, Mr. “Bullshit.”
And it was 11 open/29 total, JKill. Obviously wrong.
Thanks, David. To clarify, I wasn’t trying to put-down your prediction since box office is essentially impossible to guess and a crapshoot. It just seems like quite a few who comment on the movie industry didn’t think BRIDESMAIDS could perform when it appears to have hit the sweet spot for movies of this budget and genre to be a hit in its opening. I would assume it will have good WOM, but that’s a different issue.
i wish bridesmaids had done $50 million this weekend. it should have. FUCKING HILARIOUS.
Written on a phone…
The Bridesmaids number feels a lot like the Batman Begins opening six years ago. Many of us were expecting a bigger haul (I was SHOCKED at the under$50m Fri-Sun haul), but the industry at large considered it a success, so we got what we wanted: a Joker-centric sequel. Same with Bridesmaids. Was I optimistically hoping for a $30-$40m opening? Sure, and even moreso after I saw the film. But as long as the press treats the $20-$24m opening as a win, and we hopefully get a few more female-centric comedies like this, then our expectations are kinda moot.
Everyone should pray that BRIDESMAIDS has legs and ekes out an over 20M+ opening this weekend, because Nikki Finke is on the record as saying she would pack it in if it broke that number. Will she hold true to her word, or will she simply retroactively delete the post and pretend she never said it?
Saw it today at a Hollywood Arclight 2:20 matinee and the place was 3/4 full at a full Saturday night roar. The crowd loved it (so did I). Wouldn’t surprise me at all if “Bridesmaids” was a (surprise) massive hit.
Bridesmaids is awesome. And it would be a blessing if Nikki “Overperform!” Finke never typed another word about box office with her fibromyalgia-stricken fingers.
Saw Bridesmaids at an 11:20am show in Pasadena…only about 30 people there…and interestingly enough, almost all men.
And what do you know.. the early estimates are pegging “Bridesmaids” at $24.5 million. Truly, an underperformer.
Every self-respecting male who willingly saw Bridesmaids should have to pay penance for at least 6 months.
Why’s that, Josef? ‘Cause it stars women? ‘Cause it’s titled BRIDESMAIDS? Help us out here, oh wise one.