Box Office Democracy

Week 25 Preview

I’m still getting over last week breaking my heart.  I hope I can stop texting Prometheus late at night and accept that it’s over.

The Incumbent

Madagascar 3 is in a strong position.  It did big numbers is still in a staggering number of theaters and relies on an audience that’s very friendly to repetition.  I think it can do better than 50% of its first week numbers.  A few weeks back I was telling some people that I thought Prometheus might have a surge this week with the weak crop of opening movies if it had exceptional word of mouth.  Unfortunately the only thing exceptional about the word of mouth on Prometheus is how bad it is.

Opening this weekend

Rock of Ages: If Rock of Ages has a chance to win this week (and I really think it does) it’s on the back of the star-studded cast.  Figuratively every movie star you’ve ever heard of is in this movie.  Apparently this is based on a Broadway show of some repute and that will carry absolutely no weight in 95% of this country.  The way I see this winning would be through phenomenal word of mouth and a sublime validation of Glee as a cultural phenomenon.  Or maybe some sort of plague on our nation’s children.

That’s My Boy: As I mentioned earlier this year on this very blog I saw Jack & Jill theatrically.  When it went on to sweep every single award at this year’s Razzie Awards I was not surprised even a little.  It was a bad movie that deserves to be in the bad movie pantheon with The Room and Manos: The Hands of Fate except it needs to get additional credit for having Al Pacino in it.  With that taste fresh on my cinematic tongue I could not be less excited about the prospect of seeing another Adam Sandler movie ever again let alone this week.  Luckily, it seems that the movie gods are on my side as the distribution here is particularly anemic and it has the R-rating working against it.  Thank you America.

My Prediction: I’m going with a repeat performance by Madagascar 3.  For me to pick another movie I would have to believe it had a serious chance to make $35-40 million and I just don’t think either of these new films has that kind of opening in them.  Unless parents are holding their kids back from seeing Madagascar this weekend in preparation of Brave coming next week and, frankly, I just don’t believe Americans have that much foresight.

15 June 2012 ·

• Tags
• Week 25