It’s not that I’m not pulling for Sherlock Holmes, I am, but I simply can’t make the math work. It looks like this will be the second biggest weekend of the year, behind only New Moon‘s opening.
I’m dipping Avatar 31.5 percent, which would be high given the normal depreciation between the third and fourth weekend in December. Still, word of mouth has been solid, so I can’t ding it much more. The majority of you had Sherlock finishing first in the early predictions last weekend, you sticking by that?
The first Pirates of the Caribbean banked $14k per screen, I’m putting Sherlock Holmes at $13k. It can’t possibly be as marketable as Pirates, can it? Personally, I really liked the film, more than Brad, so I can certainly see the appeal. But it’s a smidge too smart, a smidge too British, and a bit too Guy Ritchie for mass appeal.
The franchise is set up nicely, and the second one will do $18k per screen, but they’ll have to start building word of mouth this weekend. Next weekend? It will probably win. This weekend? I’d be surprised.
I have this doing less than the first one, but I think Avatar takes a ten percent chunk out of it. Now, having said that, the first one opened while Enchanted and Golden Compass were in the theater… and it vanquished them. Still, Squeakquel? I can’t support that, even if they are selling out shows early.
There are adults who don’t have much interest in Avatar, and they’ll flock to this and the #5 title. It’s a decent film, mostly harmless, and Baldwin, Streep, and Martin are always likable. No production budget has been listed; hopefully the trio took cut rates to work with each other.
Finally! It’s getting expanded. Of course, they are doing it against a packed field, which is very odd to me given they could have done well in previous empty weekends. Still, my guess is that Paramount isn’t all that concerned with the box office take, they are eying The Academy Awards and thinking about the DVD sales.
Will big budget 2-D animation be a thing of the past if this doesn’t hit triple digits domestically? It’s been doing very well on the weekdays, but Squeakquel is going to hammer it, and with the January doldrums looming they can’t feel great about this result.
Regardless of what you thought of the film (I thought it was decent) — was this the movie to push your 2-D chips into the middle on?
There’s a strange Nine backlash going on, and most of it has to do with comparisons to the original 8.5. So Rob Marshall isn’t Fellini, does that mean this title is a goner? It’s looking that way right now.
The Blind Side is another film that has really taken advantage of the dead zone in December, prior to all the biggies releasing or going wide. There’s a chance this will go over 6x its production budget this weekend. Unbelievable, right?
For the record I have Brothers in 11th, Christmas Carol in 12th, New Moon in 13th, and Old Dogs in 14th (it’s losing a ton of theaters). How say you?
Estimate: $3.6 million
Oh, and one more thing: Merry Christmas! If you celebrate it, I wish you a happy one. If you’ve got another thing going on, I wish you a merry one of those. If it’s just a normal weekend for you, no worries, thanks for making my year great anyway.
Drop your predictions now and we’ll recap this bad boy on Sunday. It’s going to be interesting.
