Box-Office Wrap-Up: May 22 – May 24, 2009

Alert commenters Rosa, Raichu, and Gophers Attack! had it right, Night at the Museum II was victorious. Let’s get into it and see where The Oracle went wrong…
#1 movie predicted correctly: 0 Weeks In A Row
I was actually fine on the cash projection here, it did better than the first one by about 63% (per theater). Well done. Will it have the legs of the first title? No chance.
Result: 53.5 million (My rank: #2, $.5m off)
I was chided for being low, but as it turns out bad reviews or lack of interest simply murdered this one. The budget is listed at $200m too, so if poor word of mouth kicks in they are going to lose a boatload of cash… unless the international market really delivers.
Result: 43.0 million (My rank: #1, $18.8m off)
Commenter Chris_sc77 and I split the difference here. He said it would make closer to $17m, while I went with damn near $27m. Of course the answer was somewhere in the middle. Star Trek currently stands at $260m, so yeah, it’s the biggest Winona Ryder film EVER.
Result: 21.9 million (My rank: #3, $4.8m off)
See? It was better than Da Vinci Code. You can tell because it only fell 53.7% while the first one dipped 55.8%.
Result: 21.4 million (My rank: #4, $1m off)
I overrated it a bit. It won’t happen again, I’ve got it getting crushed next weekend.
Result: 11.1 million (My rank: #5, $2.7m off)
If only I’d called Night at the Museum II winning. Curses. I got sucked in by internet hype. I suppose that’s the downside of being on the ‘net 50 hours a week.
Result: 7.8 million (My rank: #6, $0.1m off)
Seriously, you’ve got to like my calls on the bottom feeders. The only prediction I saw on next weekend’s films was Up at $65m and Drag Me to Hell at $15m. Hmmm, that second number looks off to me. Horror fans will boost DMtH to at least $25m.
Result: 3.7 million (My rank: #7, $0.3m off)
I hope Beyonce Knowles got back-end on this deal.

Wow. I just left about a dozen punchlines on the table after that set-up.

Result: 2.0 million (My rank: #8, $1.1m off)
It was the best weekend of the year, the top twelve made $168m. The problem was I had it near $200m.
Result: 1.3 million (My rank: #10, $.8m off)
A lot of the smaller films really suffered this weekend. Perhaps good weather hurt the box-office?
Result: 1.0 million (My rank: #9, $1.5m off)

For next week, you’ve got to think Up will take it. Wall-E opened at $63m, that sounds about right for Up. It may do even more given it seems more family friendly. I’ll stick with $25m on Drag Me to Hell. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian will slip to around $30m. Terminator Salvation will be lucky to hit $20m. What do you think? Help me commenters, help me get this losing weekend out of my heart.

Movie News

Marvel and DC

X