Box-Office Predictions: 'Ghost Rider' Will Win the Weekend, Should We Feel Ashamed?

NOTE: These are three-day predictions. If you want four-day calls add about 25 percent to the totals to allow for President’s Day Weekend. Now that we’ve got the accounting niceties out of the way, let’s break this thing down!

Laremy predicted the #1 movie correctly 5 Weeks In A Row

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

The first one opened at a hefty $45m way back in 2007. My ferocious Googling couldn’t locate the CinemaScore on the original, but my guess was it was B+ which has since fallen to about a D+ as people went out into the real world and said, “Ghost Rider was okay” – only to have their friend say “Yeah, for a terrible movie!”

Modern pop culture has not been kind to Nic Cage over the past five years, as he’s gone from “Oscar Winning Actor” to “Punchline on SNL“. So I’m going with a bleed from 2007 here. If you’re bullish, and looking at last weekend that would certainly be a reasonable theory, you could go as high as $60m. It’s a legitimate litmus test on the American public. I’ll be hitting refresh on the results for my entire Friday evening. That’s just how I celebrate The Founding Fathers.

Prediction: $28.5 million

2. The Vow

The sixth-biggest opening in February history! Dipping it 46.5 percent and moving right along after its stellar week as it has already crossed $56 million.

Prediction: $22.04 million

3. This Means War

How do you feel about $7k per theater? I’m going very Knight and Day on this one.

Prediction: $18.2 million

4. Safe House

The comp titles that come to mind are The Eagle and Wanted. The biggest drop of the weekend for our fine friends at Universal.

Prediction: $17.87 million

5. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Very well positioned in the demographic, so it will drop the least amount of the weekend. Was the budget really $79m? Could that be? If so, they’ve got to be thrilled with the international dollars. They’ll need ’em.

Prediction: $17.76 million

6. Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace

The Empire Strikes Back re-release special edition went down about 40.2 percent in its second weekend. So this one should land around 42 percent.

Prediction: $13.08 million

7. Chronicle

They really should just make a bunch of movies like this for $12m a piece. I would chip in.

Prediction: $7.25 million

8. The Secret World of Arrietty

History suggests this won’t generate much per theater. Luckily, they’ve got a cool $126m in overseas dollars to cushion the blow.

Prediction: $5.2 million

9. The Woman in Black

$37.4m and gunning hard for $50m domestically. I say it gets there.

Prediction: $4.7 million

10. The Grey

I don’t think we’re getting a sequel, but this will end up a winner financially when all the receipts are tallied.

Prediction: $2.3 million

How say you? Three new releases to go after this weekend, and then you might even get to take Monday off. Get some! Oh, and by the way, did you know The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo recently crossed $100 million and we have a new image at the top of the Oracle article… The Phantom Menace is taking over! Two Star Wars films in the all-time top five as E.T. was bounced from the cards.

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