Box-Office Oracle: Rocky Edition

Clearly Rocky Balboa will have a massive opening weekend, but The Oracle is here to give you the low down on how Rock will perform on his first two opening nights. That’s right; it’s a bonus Wednesday Oracle for your dollar!

To project Rocky I’ve got to look at a number of factors so I don’t end up way off and look silly at the annual predictor party. How off could I be? Well, smaller top ranked Wednesday/Thursday movies occasionally don’t even pull in a million dollars so the low range for Rocky is set at $2m. Clearly that’s insanely low. To figure out the rest I’m going to look at three factors: precedent, stats, and “buzz”.

Precedent for a big money Wed/Thurs:

Casino Royale pulled off a $14m two day Wed/Thurs combo back on November 22nd and 23rd but there was a major catch to that dollar level. It was Thanksgiving. Everyone was off work and shopping near theaters so I’ve got to figure that Rocky won’t be able to match that lofty number.

Stats:

It’s at the top of the food chain on theater counts, with right around 2800, but there aren’t any midnight screenings planned and it seems like most people don’t realize that it’s opening early. It’s sporting a barely fresh 62 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but it’s the seventh most popular movie at RopeofSilicon. It’s a short 102 minutes which means more showtimes. Okay, I’m stalling; none of this really tells me much.

Buzz:

Buzz is by definition impossible to quantify but I’ve got to try. No major reviewer has dinged it yet (including Travers, Roeper, Variety, and Entertainment Weekly), and our own Brad Brevet liked it too. People are talking about it, but not in the sense of skipping work to see it.

So, with all this in mind, where does Rocky fit in? Here goes nothing:

Wednesday: $4.2m

Thursday: $4.7m

Two day total: $8.9m

That would put it well below Casino Royale but well above the average movie. My thought is that Rocky is not average, and I’m betting half a million people a day agree with me.

If you need some motivation to help me hit that number why don’t you take a look at the greatest Goddamn training montage ever!!