Box-Office Oracle: Apr. 24 – Apr. 26, 2009

#1 movie predicted correctly: 1 Weeks in a Row
As a general rule “crazy relationship” movies don’t make big money. Sure, Unfaithful made $120m back in 2002, but it only opened at $14m. Perfect Stranger is more typical, it cleared $73m after opening at $11.2m. I’m putting this one slightly above that one, but it will be the worst box-office weekend since December, so don’t look for anything to really bank. Sidenote: Has anyone even seen any ads for this?
Estimate: $12.0 million
It will drop nearly 57 percent. But Soloist is only getting 1800 theaters, not enough to compete.
Estimate: $10.3 million
Director Joe Wright has an incredible amount of talent but this film is unfocused and meandering. I look for it to put up State of Play numbers.
Estimate: $9.1 million
This is an odd little duck because it’s opening wide right off the bat. March of the Penguins took seven weeks to ramp up to 2,000 theaters. An Inconvenient Truth never even hit 600 theaters total. Encounters at the End of the World didn’t even clear a million dollars. So how can I give this more than $5k per theater? Even that feels high.
Estimate: $9.0 million
Never Back Down opened at $8.6m in March of 2008. But it had 700 more theaters, so this will do slightly worse.
Estimate: $7.4 million
It could be hurt by The Soloist… but at this level of dollars you might as well break out a dartboard. The overall takeaway is that people won’t be at the multiplex this weekend.
Estimate: $7.3 million
$282m worldwide and still climbing. Studios think we want big dumb fun but that’s only partly true. We mostly want entertaining films. For instance, Fighting is just the “dumb” part. Not as effective.
Estimate: $6.8 million
It plummeted 58 percent last weekend; I’m predicting that trendline will ease up a little.
Estimate: $6.5 million
Studios are counting on 3-D to boost profits, Brad broke it down in his “Forget ‘Spider-Man 4 In 3-D… Here’s the Real News ” article. Amazingly, they seem to favor the method because they can charge more for it, not because the consumer actually wants it. I can’t see this clever plan backfiring in the slightest!
Estimate: $5.3 million
The first Crank dropped like a dead duck, this version will do the same.
Estimate: $3.3 million

Okay, now it’s your turn. I’m probably low on Obsessed, but how far off am I? Or will something else win the weekend? Will the top twelve films even sniff $100m gross? Get some!

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