Jack the Giant Slayer should have no problem capturing the weekend crown, they’ve marketed it to hell and back, plus the main competition is Rated R. I see it pulling in the family and fantasy fans and besting tracking to settle in at $35 million.
The sour note for Warner Bros. is that the opening number extrapolates out to around $100 million domestic, but the budget was a staggering $195 million. Thus, they will need something approaching half a billion dollars worldwide to feel good about the project. Ouchie. They might just get it, but they’ll be sweating out the next month, that is a ton of money to spend on a non-franchise / non-superhero film.
Next up, 21 and Over certainly looks like this year’s Project X. This is another film I like to exceed tracking, I’m throwing out an $18 million seeing how it’s all alone in its respective demographic. They didn’t screen it for us, but early reviews aren’t positive. Then again, this isn’t aimed at guys and gals over 50, so it should be a relatively “review-proof” film.
The Last Exorcism: Part II is a classic example of how I’d run my imaginary studio (Mark Cuban, call me, I could fix Lionsgate for you). With a miniscule $3.5 million production budget, it will easily hit a profit in its first five days; this weekend could be around $14 million. That’s financial responsibility, even if the product being put out might be inferior (another “not screened for critics” special).
Lastly, I don’t have Phantom cracking the top ten. You might, I wouldn’t be angry with you, but it looks to be DOA in terms of marketing. It’s being released by a company called RCR Distribution, it seems to be their first film. And possibly last? Nah, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they made it on the cheap and leaned on Ed Harris to star.
That’s all from this guy, the most withering drops in terms of the holdovers should come from Snitch and A Good Day to Die Hard, both of which look like total skips if you haven’t seen them yet.
How say you? Four new releases on the boards, so get to predicting!
Current Streak: Five weekends in a row.
Chances of Streak Being Broken: 12 percent
Reason: I see no reason Jack and the Giant Slayer will be far enough under tracking to make this a legit horse race.
Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
Jack the Giant Slayer: $29 million
21 and Over: $14 million
The Last Exorcism: Part II: $12 million
Phantom: $2 million
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
