Guardians of the Galaxy will get a repeat win this weekend, even though, given that huge opening weekend number, it theoretically should be front-loaded in a big way. I’m calling for a 53 percent dip, not catastrophic, and it’s already made $66 million overseas. The great thing about releasing in August is Guardians won’t face any heavyweight competition, which should lead to nice holdover numbers. I’ve put it at $44.3 million this weekend, and an easy win.
Speaking of lackluster competition, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the new kid in town, though it’s been around for decades. This one is in 3-D! I think I speak for us all when I say, “whatever”. The tracking is rather good, but if you took the 1990 version and adjust for inflation you’d get a number closer to $82 million this weekend. Does that means the Turtles have faded over 50 percent in box office power? It does. $33.3 million, and they probably shouldn’t have bothered unless the production budget was super low. This is a straight international play.
Into The Storm is a bad movie masquerading as an even worse movie. There’s not much room at the box office anymore for non-star, non-alien, non-horror, non-global catastrophe movies. That was a lot caveats, sure, but this just a weird little title with an extremely limited marketing budget. It’s like a really watered down version of Final Destination, which makes sense given the director here directed the fifth one of that franchise. The opening weekend results will be just about the same, it’ll come in around $19.5 million.
Finally, Step Up All In! It’s no secret around here that I love the dancing movies, so I’m trying to stay unbiased. And guess what? I’m below tracking at $8 million. Domestically this franchise is a sinking ship, even with my $10 ticket on Thursday night (nope, not screened for critics). But my precious Briana Evigan is back! Man, I wish these sorts of movies made the silly money that robot movies do. But they don’t, and this weekend won’t be an exception.
Note: I didn’t include The Hundred-Foot Journey: $9 million in this weekend’s calls. It just seemed like predicting the holdover for Guardians of the Galaxy was more interesting.
That’s what I’ve got to say. Your turn!
Current Record: 34-74-5 against the wisdom of the crowds.
Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: $36 million
- Into The Storm: $20 million
- Step Up All In: $10 million
- The Hundred-Foot Journey: $9 million
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
