&Not too much has changed since Tuesday, but with Balls of Fury (Rogue Pictures) opening yesterday with just $1.7 million, it looks like our earlier weekend prediction might be a little high unless it's able to pick up the slack, something which might be hard with two new movies opening, vying for the same audience.
Rob Zombie's Halloween (Dimension Films) will be opening in over 3,400 theatres, a bit higher than our earlier projections, and though it still will be very frontloaded for Friday, it looks like a shoe-in to set a new Labor Day record based on early advanced sales. On the other hand, James Wan's Death Sentence (Fox Atomic) is getting even fewer theatres than projected, though it should still be able to find some spillover audience from Halloween.
The only other major change since Tuesday is that Mr. Bean's Holiday wasn't expanded into nearly as many theatres as originally thought, so Universal will have to contend with their other sequel, The Bourne Ultimatum, staying ahead of it this weekend, as it still holds strong in over 3,200 theatres in its fifth weekend, which is almost unheard of.
Updated Predictions (all four-day predictions) -
1. Halloween (Dimension) - $23.4 million N/A (up a million from earlier prediction)
2. Superbad (Sony) - $13.6 million -25% (up .1)
3. Balls of Fury (Rogue Pictures) - $11.2 million N/A (down $.6 million from earlier prediction)
4. The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal) - $10.2 million -18% (up .5 and 1 slot)
5. Mr. Bean's Holiday (Universal) - $9.8 Million 0% (down .4 and 1 slot)
6. Rush Hour 3 (New Line) – $7.9 million -33% (same)
7. Death Sentence (Fox Atomic) - $6.3 million N/A (down .1)
8. War (Lionsgate) - $5.5 million -44% (down .3)
9. The Nanny Diaries (The Weinstein Company) - $5.3 million -30% (same)
10. The Simpsons Movie (20th Century Fox) - $3.0 million -31% (down .3)
Check out a preview of next week after the bump.
Next week will be all about the battle for the dudes between James Mangold's remake of the Western 3:10 to Yuma (Lionsgate) with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, and Michael Davis' original (and that's putting it lightly) action flick Shoot ‘Em Up (New Line), pitting Clive Owen against Paul Giamatti. (Thankfully it isn't a beauty or charm contest or else Clive is doomed!) Expect 3:10 to have the slight audience, though both movies are likely to wind up with less than $12 million being the first weekend after Labor Day, which is usually terrible for new movies.
Lastly, there's Will Forte's comedy The Brothers Solomon (Sony/Tristar) where he and Will Arnett try to get unwitting women pregnant. It's directed by Bob Odenkirk, who will have to pray if he wants this movie to make more than last year's Let's Go To Prison, but Sony's only releasing it moderately wide in around 700 theatres, so it might have a hard time even getting into the Top 10.
