Box-Office Oracle: Oct. 2 – Oct. 4, 2009

It has a lot going for it. First off, it has the second most theaters (after Fame). It also has 1300 more theaters than any new release. It’s got a nice trailer, and Sony has done a solid job promoting it. What could go wrong? The R rating is about it. But the Toy Story re-release is taking a few hundred of those lucrative 3D theaters away from Meatballs, and that will be enough to carry the day. I think.

Estimate: $21.3 million

Surrogates beat it on Wednesday, but adult fare generally does better on school nights. The international box office grab starts for this film in October, only then will we know the final financial verdict here.

Estimate: $17.9 million

It’s very oddly placed for this market. Is it a girl power movie? A coming of age tale? A sports flick? If there’s one thing ticket buyers hate it’s uncertainty, and this one is gonna pay the price for that this weekend.

Estimate: $7.7 million

There’s already a test case out there for this film. Ghost Town, which was pretty good. It starred Ricky Gervais, released in the fall, and had an odd premise to market. The difference was that this one isn’t very good… but that doesn’t matter too much on opening weekend.

Estimate: $7.6 million

The budget was $80m, it’s made $18m so far. So Jonathan Mostow has some ‘splaining to do.

Estimate: $7.0 million

I feel like there is a precedent for this I can’t quite recall. But I also feel like rereleases rarely do any box office, although Nightmare Before Christmas has been an occasional exception. I just don’t think parents are up for the three hour running time (which also cuts down on screenings) but we’ll see. Perhaps they’ll find it to be a good value and it will take third.

Estimate: $6.9 million

I have five films within a million dollars of each other, always a formula for chaos. Capitalism packed the four theaters it was in last weekend, to the tune of the 36th best per theater average of all time, but that tells us very little about this weekend. However, I expect it to win the per theater average contest, because the 962 screens it is showing on will enforce scarcity.

Estimate: $6.7 million

In three years people will just barely remember this existed. And then it will probably be time for another remake of it.

Estimate: $4.9 million

If you haven’t listened to the “This American Life” podcast on this subject you really owe yourself. It has way less of the tonal issues the film has.

Estimate: $4.3 million

Once again, Inglourious Basterds could sneak into this spot. And once again I’m cheering for it to do so.

Estimate: $2.6 million