Laremy is out this week, but before taking some time off he did send in his box office predictions. So the number you see here are his, I’m just the messenger. Let’s have a look.
It appears Laremy is relying a little on tracking, picking Non-Stop to finish #1 over Son of God. It’s really an impossible predicament considering you can never tell just what the religious turnout is going to be.
In Sacramento one church bought out all 16 screens at one theater and all up the West Coast, but primarily here in the Seattle area, the Mars Hill Church bought more than 3,500 seats for Thursday night pre-screenings. So, while Laremy’s $25.3 million prediction for Non-Stop may be spot-on, there’s no telling if Son of God will be higher or lower than his predicted $20.8 million. My gut tells me higher, but by how much I have no idea. Sorry, I’m worthless.
Sandwiched between the two new openers is The Lego Movie, the second film of 2014 to take #1 three weekends in a row and dropping only 37.2% last weekend. Laremy’s predicting another 30+% drop this weekend and a $21.7 million finish as it will head over $200 million and increase its lead as the highest grossing film of 2014 so far.
Finally, adding 429 theaters is Hayao Miyazaki‘s The Wind Rises, which Laremy is sticking closely to the MTC tracking and going with a $2.2 million weekend. To my knowledge, the highest amount any Miyazaki movie has made in one weekend domestically was $3.5 million, which was Ponyo in 2009, which is also the only Miyazaki film to gross more than $1 million in any one weekend and it did over the course of its first four. Last weekend The Wind Rises brought in $313,751 from 21 theaters.
We’ve got the complete top ten predicted for you below and now it’s your turn. We’ve given you all our numbers and a few things to think on. Get your predictions in and let’s see what that reader average for Son of God ends up being.
Current Record: 6-22 against the wisdom of the crowds.
Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
- Non-Stop: $26.3
- Son of God: $22.5
- The Wind Rises: $2.3
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
