Laremy is a little under the weather so I’m taking over for today’s predictions write-up, but the numbers are all his and he’s got an interesting call at #1, at least as far as the number is concerned.
He’s got Ant-Man in the top slot, which isn’t too surprising, but the $67 million prediction is an interesting one, but I can see where he’s coming from. This is an origin story for a lesser-known Marvel character and looking back in time, in 2011, Captain America: The First Avenger opened with $65 million and earlier that same year Thor opened with $65.7 million. So Laremy has taken a mild bit of inflation in mind and gone just a couple notches higher.
Of course, we can’t overlook the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2011 and last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which was even more of an unknown property and it opened to the tune of $94.7 million. If I were predicting I’d probably go as high as $75 million or so, though I don’t know if I’d go much higher. How about you?
The weekend’s other new wide release is the Amy Schumer-led comedy Trainwreck, which Laremy is pegging at $37 million, which seems to be a strong call. I’d personally say the strongest comparisons at this time would be the Melissa McCarthy R-rated comedies and the likes of The Heat opened with $39 million a couple years ago and Identity Thief at $34.5m that same year.
Then we go to the animated titles and last weekend’s massive opener Minions and its “A” CinemaScore and second largest opening for an animated film of all-time. Laremy is going with less than a 50% drop and a prediction of $58 million, which I think sounds quite nice… not that you were asking.
Finally, Pixar’s Inside Out is yet another animated success for the studio and after this weekend it will have crossed the $300 million mark domestically, placing it third on the all-time Pixar list, just ahead of Up ($293m) and just behind Finding Nemo ($339m). This is the film’s fifth weekend in release and Laremy is predicting $10.4 million.
With all that out of the way, I hand it over to you and thank Laremy for his numbers. Get your predictions in and let’s see how the weekend shakes out.
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
