Box-Office Oracle: ‘Men in Black 3’ Hopes to Dethrone ‘The Avengers’
By
Laremy Legel
It had to happen eventually, and it looks as though Men in Black III is going to be the one to do it. The Avengers streak of three straight weekends will come to an end this holiday weekend … unless something completely outlandish happens. Let’s break it down!
Laremy predicted the #1 movie correctly 3 Weeks In A Row
Precedent is just about worthless here, as it’s been almost ten years, and the franchise was on the wane even then. Still, we should look, if only to confuse the issue even further.
In 2002 MIB 2 opened at nearly $15k per theater, or $52.1m. In today’s dollars that would equal something around $64m. Worldwide box office shrank from $589 to $441m for the sequel, plus it cost 50 percent more. Thus, a franchise on the down-slope, and all the marketing they did ten years ago has to be re-established. I don’t think there were MIB fans out there clamoring for a 3-D version, so this is a purely commercial play. Will it work? Uh, maybe?
But really, no. The tracking for the four-day weekend looks to be around $80m, so I’m below even that. I just don’t like the momentum here, but it should still have enough to hold off The Avengers, especially with a ten percent boost from 3-D.
Remember those gleeful “Battleship banks $200m overseas!!” headlines? Yeah, they were pretty much all bluster, because this film is massively doomed. A production budget of $209m means they won’t sniff the nearly half a billion needed for theatrical profit. All in all, a pretty spectacular disaster. Hats off to everyone involved.
One of the compelling things about Sacha Baron Cohen’s films is that they cost very little, and make much more than that. Not so with The Dictator, which came in with a $65m price tag. This was too much to spend for what they can expect their return to be. #JustSayin’
