The Divergent Series: Insurgent will outperform the original film, even though that one was terrible. I liked this a lot more and I’m going with $18k per theater, $68.4 million, or about a 30 percent jump. That’s aggressive, but slotting this against the NCAA Tournament was pure genius.
The Gunman looks D.O.A., even more so than Run All Night. The trailers could not look any worse, Sean Penn creeping around in the shadows with a gun. I’m putting it at $8.4 million, but even that might be kind. Like that scene in The Big Lebowski, there’s just no bottom here.
Do You Believe? Not really, no. Well, okay, I believe in the sense that with only 1,300 theaters it’s punching well above its weight. As per normal, these religious titles are basically impossible to predict as they rely on actual human marketing. What’s going on in all the churches of America? That’s one thing I can’t possibly know, but I like that Brian Bosworth is in this. That takes me back. I’ll go for $6.5 million, praying it’s a semi-educated guess.
Cinderella is looking niiiiice. $95 million isn’t a ridiculous budget when you factor in the wide appeal of Disney nostalgia. $400 million looks pretty likely, a tidy $150 million profit, and it will add $42.8 million to the coffers this weekend.
That’s it for me, I’m off to watch some March Madness. You understand.
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
