AVATAR

What’s good, what’s good? It’s been a while, but you’ve got to be crazy if you thought I wasn’t going to write a forecast for Avatar. Seriously, this is judgment day for anyone who thinks they can accurately predict a film’s box office trajectory. I don’t believe I’ve ever followed a movie with such a wide range of box office possibilities. After the release of the first Avatar trailer in August, a flood of skeptics dismissed the notion that the film’s use of advanced 3D and “E-Motion Capture” technology would revolutionize cinema. To be honest, the visuals of Pandora, the photo-fluorescent planet on which Avatar is set, just didn’t look all that impressive, and the story seemed pretty hackneyed. Industry insiders scorned Fox for producing such a recklessly expensive project, and, at the time, it seemed that Avatar’s goofy blue aliens were destined to share the throne of “biggest flops ever” with Kevin Costner and his Water World.

Needless to say, things have changed in the past four months. The story still seems (and still is according to most critics) rather blasé, but the tide has turned regarding Avatar’s special effects. It’s “the most beautiful film I’ve seen in years,” boasted David Denby, lead critic for The New Yorker, as he and I discussed the film over dinner. While attending a “Women against Gender-Discriminating Urinals” rally, I swear I overheard Manohla Dargis scream “it’s the end of our movie-going life as we know it!” Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t… be whatever that may, I think anyone who’s anyone has finally acknowledged, within the last week, Avatar’s enormous box office potential.

That said, let me remind you of the rules I play by… I don’t look at any other box-office forecasts, blogs, etc. I don’t check out the prices movies are trading for on HSX (although you really should check out this site, it’s kind of interesting). I only use rentrak box office essentials (thank you focus features for never changing the password too drastically) to compile databases, get screen counts, etc. Alright, let’s do this.

Opening in 3,453 theatres, Jimmy Cameron’s “Avatar” is going to generate a lot of revenue, but it’s tough to say just how much cash it will bring in this weekend. The people at Fox marketed the hell out of this movie, which, logically, should help to expand its appeal, but there is such a thing as over-marketing, and if any movie’s guilty of it, it’s Avatar. I admit I was pretty excited when I saw the first TV spot for Avatar. I glowed in admiration after seeing even the 100th spot. Yet, after Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana attempted to dramatically mesh their storyline with Monday Night Football last week, during which Alex Smith and Kurt Warner were pitted against each other as rival extra-terrestrial species, I was irritated. When I’m watching football, I don’t want to think about Kurt Warner as a giant blue indigenous cat-man, and I don’t think it’s very nice to portray him in such a light. From what I’ve noticed, people are tired of hearing about Avatar—they’re tired of watching the commercials that only advertise its technical genius—mostly because they don’t know what Avatar is actually about. While Avatar has successfully marketed its name and its special effects, it has certainly failed in advertising itself as a movie, complete with characters and a plot line we care about. Fox has forgotten that people go to the movies primarily because they’re interested in the story. It’s never good when everybody in the world has heard of Avatar, but I’m the only person who can tell you the story. Nevertheless, Avatar is going to cash in because it is, apparently, a pretty decent movie, and word-of-mouth will turn it into a spectacle that everyone will have to see.

I created a database that includes every action/sci-fi/fantasy/adventure/animated movie released in December and that has grossed at least 100M (domestic cume) since 1990 and found some pretty interesting results. First of all, no December movie has ever opened north of 77M in its first weekend-- I Am Legend holds this record. LOTR: Return of the King opened to 72.6M this very weekend six years ago which, if adjusted for inflation, would equal about 85.3M today, but that’s as high as December opening weekends climb. Even if LOTR had opened to 85.3M, it would only rank 24th on the list of all time largest opening weekends. The average adjusted (for inflation) opening weekend of the December movies I compiled is just 46.7M, excluding outliers (films on the list that opened in limited release). So far, the data tells us that December movies generally don’t have large opening weekend numbers, even when the hype for some of them, such as the Lord of the Rings, has been huge. When I looked at their average total domestic grosses though, I found a far different story. Adjusted for inflation by individual year, the twenty films on the list averaged an astounding 257M total domestic gross. Just the average take of these films would rank 49th on the list of all-time domestic box office grosses!

The real story behind December’s box office numbers can be found when you divide the average adjusted domestic gross of the twenty films on the list by the average adjusted opening weekend gross {257,000,000/46,700,000}=5.5--> the multiplier. On average, tent pole December movies end up grossing 5.5X their opening weekend gross, which is a ridiculously large number for effects-heavy, high up-front demand films. Compare the average multiplier of 5.5X to 3.6X, the average multiplier for any film that grossed more than 100M this summer, and you learn a lot about how big budget movies play out in the month of December. They may start out slow, but they finish strong as they witness small weekly declines compared to summer action movies. Avatar will, no doubt, follow a similar trajectory.

If you’re expecting Avatar to break the opening weekend box office record, don’t. It’s just not going to happen in December, when people are busy traveling and preparing for Christmas. Also, don’t expect it to come close to New Moon’s opening weekend gross of 142M last month—Sam Worthington ain’t no unnaturally ripped 17-yearold. That’s not to say it won’t break any records, though. One record that Avatar could possibly break is the biggest 2nd or 3rd weekend gross. Currently, The Dark Knight holds the 2nd weekend record with 75M, and Spider-Man 1 holds the 3rd weekend record with 45M. I wouldn’t be surprised if Avatar broke the 2nd weekend record, but I do expect it to beat out Spider-Man 1 for the 3rd weekend spot. Word of mouth will spread quickly after Avatar is released tonight, and I expect it to hold out extremely well in the weeks to come.

In terms of opening weekend gross, the biggest allies Avatar has is its 3D and IMAX formats. 3D and IMAX screenings are more expensive than 2D screenings, and the extra revenue generated by the alternate format premium is counted towards a movie’s box office gross. Avatar is opening in over 2,400 3D sites, along with another 100+ IMAX theaters. No movie has ever opened in more 3D theaters, which bodes well for its potential domestic take. I looked at every movie that has ever grossed more than 100M in 3D and/or IMAX formats and found that their average opening weekend gross is 61.9M, a 32% increase from 46.7M, the average opening weekend gross for the month of December’s past action/adventure films.

When it comes down to it, this is one of the most difficult predictions I’ve had to make. I expect Avatar to climb to the top spot on the list of biggest December openings with a Fri-Sun take of around 100M and a 2nd weekend gross of 65M+. Get used to hearing about it, not that you haven’t already, because Avatar is going to be around for a while as it, in my opinion, will experience the smallest second weekend decline ever for a movie that opened north of 100M. Will it change movies forever? Probably not, but it will change special effects. Will it win 11 Oscars like Cameron’s last film? Doubt it. Will it break box office records? Yes, just not the ones people care about. Will Fox make a profit off of it? Without a freakin’ doubt.

Labor Day Weekend- 9/4/09

What’s good, what’s good? It’s September. The calendar has turned. The summer box office season is done. Congratulations, girl/guy who wears unnecessary accessories out, lives in Soho or Brooklyn, and hasn’t stopped talking about “500 Days of Summer” for the last month, you don’t have to be so angry anymore about the dearth of films in the market that have independent flare/bad lighting and sound. That’s right, you can finally return to your Sunshine Cinema after having only watched the previously listed movie and “Where the Wild Things Are” trailers for the past three months. For those of you on the opposite end of the spectrum, don’t worry either, bad action movies never stop being released, smart people just stop going to see them. In case you didn’t notice, I lied to you when I said I was never going to tag people in these forecasts again. Push the Box membership (pushthebox.blogspot.com) has only gone up by one member since my last forecast, in which I asked people to join the blog in order to exponentially increase the blog’s traffic in the hope that such a sudden burst of site popularity would ultimately lead to Hu Jintao’s decision to add my blog to the list of blocked websites in China. Yes, it’s true that I could probably get my blog blocked by the China pretty easily if I just posted a bunch of pictures of Tienmen Square and Pokémon, but that’s no fun. Just like I won’t stop talking about Michael Bay’s candidacy for the California governorship until he personally blows up a CGI look-a-like of me in his next film, I will continue to harass you, Hu Jintao, until you block my website.

You know the deal with the predictions…

The widest release of the weekend, Gamer, opens today in approximately 2,500 theaters. The Gerard Butler starrer is exactly the type of bad action movie that smart people will no longer pay money to watch now that September has rolled around. Lionsgate knows this as well, seeing that they’ve only leased the film to 2,500 locations (that number would be around 3,300 if the movie had come out two months ago) to cut down on costs. The two movies I’d compare Gamer to from last year are Babylon A.D. and Death Race. Babylon, starring Vin Diesel, also opened on Labor Day weekend and failed miserably at attempting to make any money. Produced for 70M, A.D. grossed BC-like numbers with only 11M through the four-day weekend and 22M for its entire theatrical release. The other movie I mentioned, Death Race, came out in late August of last year and posted similarly miserable numbers with 12.6M in its first weekend and a final tally of 36M domestically at a budget of 45M. I think Gamer will pretty much follow suit with Death Race, seeing as they’re both about reality video-games in which convicts get a chance to win their freedom by risking their lives. I’d go with about 15M for the frame.

I know I doubted Sandra Bullock earlier this summer in The Proposal and paid the price for it, but I’m going to doubt her yet again because, once again, it’s September, not June or July. Shockingly, the pic, All About Steve, is a romantic comedy, which certainly does play to Bullock’s least weaknesses, but, this time, there will be no Ryan Reynolds to save the day, only Bradley Cooper. I’m still convinced that The Proposal did so well because it had a great trailer, but AAS (I hate whoever just thought about geometry) doesn’t. In fact, it has a horrible trailer. Not only does the movie not look funny, but they’ve somehow managed to make Sandra Bullock look ugly. I’m gonna go with about 12M from 2,200 theaters.

Opening in 1,600 theaters, Extract, starring Jason Bateman and Mila Kunis, shouldn’t expect to extract too much cash from box-office either. Ben Affleck is also in it, so that should be a pretty good indicator that Extract won’t last long. The quasi-limited release doesn’t bode well for the film either, along with the fact that Miramax is distributing. I’d go with about 7M for the weekend.

Among interesting holdovers from last weekend, expect to see The Final Destination fall hard, like raining frogs hard. I don’t know how, but FD made 27.4M last weekend, which is about 10M north of where I placed it at, but I’m going to enjoy watching it drop 65% to about 9.5M (Fri-Sun) and to a Fri-Mon take of around 12M.

Alright, good stuff. JOIN THE BLOG so I can get my blog blocked by the China.

Weekend of 8/28/09

What’s good, what’s good? I know, it’s been a while, but I’ve been busy, and, to be honest with you, the month of August is depressing. August is a movie dead zone. It marks the transition period between summer box-office blockbuster excitement and the autumn months of art-house Oscar hopefuls. Of course, as I say that, this August has happened to defy convention with the surprisingly robust openings of District 9 and Inglorious Basterds, proving how ‘plastic’ the social science of film distribution truly is. My hope is that the major studios will learn from the reinvention of August—that they’ll recognize that regardless of what the calendar says, people will line up to see refreshing, innovative films made by fearless directors—that you don’t have to make a sequel to generate box-office revenue—that if you just pick a number, any number, and stick it in the title, the movie will post numbers comparable to a sequel anyway.

Before I get started, I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you to become a member of Push The Box (www.pushthebox.blogspot.com). Currently, only six people are members, four of whom include family members and myself, and I find this statistic a little upsetting. I’m not exactly sure how things become “viral,” but I figure if I can get 50 members by the end of the week, that number will exponentially increase in the coming months, at which point the Chinese government will officially block my website. Thus, I’m starting a campaign, as of now, to “Get My Blog Blocked by The CHINA.”

Now that that’s settled, let’s get going. You know the deal…

Because the only two major releases this weekend are The Final Destination and Halloween II, Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, which opened to 38.1M last weekend (the #1 opening of his career), looks to scalp the rest of the competition again and remain at #1 on the depth charts. Met with mixed reviews and even disgust by a few major film critiques (suck it David Denby), Basterds defied all expectations and surely made the Weinstein Brothers happy. Whether it’s a good film or not, Basterds has created a lot of excitement and without the customary mid-to-late August release of a potential Oscar candidate (Seabiscuit, Little Miss Sunshine), it looks like adults looking for a more serious film to discuss at late summer cookouts will have to settle for a debate on the clout of Tarantino’s name vs. the quality of his movies. I expect Basterds to drop 35% in its second weekend to 25M, which may be enough to stay atop the charts.

“The Final Destination,” the fourth installment in the FD franchise, returns this weekend in 3,000 theaters and in the third dimension. New Line has been marketing the hell out of the film since well before the beginning of summer, which could potentially result in a respectable debut for the pic. The three previous Final Destination films have all grossed somewhere around 50M (total domestic), but New Line is clearly hoping the novelty of 3D will help boost the fourth installment to a final destination somewhere well beyond that figure. Fortunately, that won’t happen. The last FD film (and, by far, the worst) grossed 19M in February ’06, which is pretty much what I expect the latest pic to gross as well. With absolutely no famous stars to help boost its weekend take, inevitably horrendous reviews, and the competition of another fright flic in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, The Final Destination will, hopefully, not gross more than 20M this weekend.

Rob Zombie’s latest foray into horror film making, Halloween II, opens in 3,000 theaters this weekend, and it could post big numbers. Two years ago, Halloween opened on this very weekend to 26.3M on its way to 58M domestically, but it didn’t face any stiff competition. It will be interesting to see how two very successful horror franchises—Halloween and Final Destination—compete against each other in a horror-deprived movie market. Will the 3D of Final Destination be too much for Halloween to handle, or will the Rob Zombie name carry the serial killer Michael Myers to deadly new heights? Honestly, among Basterds, FD 4, and Halloween Dose, there is so much blood, guts, and destruction that I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen, aside from the fact that they’re all going to generate weekend grosses within the vicinity of 20-25M. If I had to pick a loser, I’d say it’s going to be FD4, which I could see dropping to an opening of 15M if the late August markets turns out to be too small for two slasher franchises.

Opening in a more limited release of 1,300 theaters, Focus Features looks to draw a crowd with Taking Woodstock, the story behind the creation of the famous rock festival. While Focus may have hoped that Taking Woodstock could have been the customary mid-to-late August potential Oscar candidate, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be, given the mixed reviews and serious lack of any marketing campaign whatsoever, which is a shame given the film’s director (Ang Lee) and star (Demetri Martin). In fact, it looks like it may be a long few weeks for Focus, as its next release, “9,” opens on September 9th (9-9-09), and I haven’t seen anything resembling a marketing campaign for that film either. I’ll give Woodstock a liberal 5M estimate, just because I like the guys at Focus and want to see them do well.

I may as well remind you again of the extreme importance in become a member of the blog so I can reach the ultimate goal of getting blocked by the China. It’s free to join, and, in doing so, you are also standing up for a free world. Free Membership = Free World, remember that.

Box Office Forecast/Where Your Ticket Money Actually Goes- Weekend of 7/31/09

What’s good, what’s good? Thought you’d gotten rid of me on your homepage after I created Push The Box? (http://pushthebox.blogspot.com) Well, it looks like you won’t have space on your news feed to see the percentage breakdown of what shade of Khaki best matches Bobby's personality for one more minute as I take this opportunity to shamelessly plug Push The Box yet again. That’s right, this is the last time I will tag any of you in a facebook note… From now on I will simply post the link to Push The Box on my status when I publish a new forecast. Don’t worry, you can still read the forecasts as facebook notes if you so desire, but note I will not be tagging anyone in them. Alright then, you know the drill—let’s get started.

Marking his third directorial attempt, Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” opens in 3,000 theaters this weekend and hopes to be taken seriously at the box office. With a cast of Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Eric Banna, and Jonah Hill, the film certainly doesn’t lack in star power and should be able to find its way to solid numbers. The real question is whether or not Funny People can compare to last month’s “The Hangover,” which has officially become the most successful R-rated comedy of all time (248.9M). To put that number in perspective, the latest Star Trek film made 254M domestically, but it had a production budget of 150M compared to the Hangover’s budget of 35M! Pretty crazy, right? Now that we're on the subject, this may be a good time to digress a little and explain where your money actually goes when you buy that movie ticket so you can further understand the significance of a film’s box-office revenue. It’s gonna be a bit long, but you’ll be able to sound smart after you read it…

Let’s say you’re Paramount Pictures, the studio behind the latest Star Trek—You spent 150M to make the film, and every movie ticket costs exactly $10. Generally speaking, the movie theater is gonna take about 50% ($5.00) of that ticket cost for themselves, leaving Paramount with $5.00 per ticket sold. Your movie made 250M (total revenue) domestically, meaning you sold approximately 25 million tickets in the US. At $5/ticket, Star Trek, a box-office success, has made $125M (revenue) for Paramount Pictures, yet the movie cost 150M to make…

Wait a minute, what about foreign box-office? Star Trek cashed 125M worth of intergalactic traveler’s checks, and if we assume that ticket prices as well as the 50% cinema fee are universal, the film brought in $62.5M in revenue to Paramount from overseas. In that case, Paramount has grossed $125M (domestic) + $62.5M (foreign), equaling $187.5M. Not bad, right? Wrong. We forgot that a big movie like Star Trek costs a lot of money to market, and when I say “a lot,” I mean approximately the same amount as the total production budget ($150M!). At this point, Paramount has grossed (not profited) $187.5M and has spent $300M, meaning it’s in a $110M black hole. Unfortunately, it get’s worse. Star Trek debuted in 4,000 theaters and probably around 10,000 screens at a cost of about $1,500 per screen to copy and ship the film prints. There goes another $15M, I suppose.

Nearing the end of its theatrical run in our quasi-hypothetical movie distribution world, Star Trek has cost Paramount $125M, but things are not nearly as bad as they might seem. While a movie theater may charge Paramount 50% of the ticket cost, a very important number that’s not factored into that stat is the fee Paramount charges the theater to lease Star Trek. With big-budget summer blockbusters, distributors can charge outrageous leasing fees to the movie theaters, meaning a company like Paramount is really taking in about 70% ($7) out of each $10 ticket sold. If a theater is only making $3.00/ticket in Star Trek’s first week (the leasing rates are generally staggered by weeks of release), they’re losing money after you factor in the total costs of running a movie theater. Enter the 400% marked up concession prices…

So let’s just say that including the staggered leasing fees, Paramount has now grossed about $240M, and Star Trek is pulled from its remaining theaters. Paramount has still lost $60M, but because of Star Trek’s success in the box-office nonetheless, they will undoubtedly begin to make a profit once they begin to sell the film on DVD, On Demand, Pay Per View, Cable Networks, and Airlines. If the thought comes to mind that after $300M (at least) spent in production/marketing and a 12 week theatrical release, it seems a movie theater is simply a glorified concession stand, and a theatrical distribution is really just an enormous DVD marketing campaign, you’d be 100% right. That’s all the movie industry is. Now, maybe you can see why studios are so worried about pirated video? Sorry for the lengthy digression, but I felt like that was something I had to put out on the table for us to move forward in our relationship. (I just laughed for a long time when I read this last sentence. I’m very mature, I swear)

Going back to this weekend’s release of “Funny People,” I can guarantee it won’t be nearly as successful as “The Hangover.” First, Funny People is not exactly a funny movie. It’s a dramedy, not a comedy… and it’s also two and a half hours long, which doesn’t bode well for any non-epic/fantasy film. To be concise, I expect an opening of 31M from 3,000 theaters. (Check out www.george-simmons.com and watch the videos, they’re hilarious)

This is the first time I’ve ever heard of such a film, but apparently “Aliens in the Attic” is opening this weekend in 3,100 theaters. It looks ridiculous, but, then again, a movie about the hamsters from the blockbuster commercials made 31.7M last weekend and dethroned the quickly fading Harry Potter so anything’s possible. I’m going to say 18M… with an over/under of 40M. Finally, a horror movie called “The Collector” is opening this weekend in 1,300 theaters. It’s about a thief who breaks into a house at night only to discover that a psychotic murderer has already broken into (wait for it) the same exact house! My goodness, the odds of that! Imagine George Clooney or Brad Pitt in Ocean’s 11 breaking into a casino vault only to find Jigsaw from the Saw movies. Wait a second, it’s written by the writers of Saw IV and V?! It’s going to be horrifying! $4M, shoot me and then yourself if it makes a cent more.

I’d like to take this brief moment to retract whatever I said about Emma Watson in my last forecast. Emma Watson is arrogant, not hot, underdeveloped, and going to Brown. That's right, Brown. I can't believe it Emma. I was going to be your Ron Weasley. Now, unfortunately, I will personally make sure you are never in one of my movies and that you will act only in Michael Bay and Uwe Boll films for the rest of time. Do not turn your back on the fierce Columbia Lion. In other news, ladies, I’m available again.

Harry Potter Special Edition

What’s good, what’s good. Sorry, I took last weekend off, but it was definitely a Netflix weekend regardless. In that case, I hope you watched some good films because I did—The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Hurt Locker (not Netflix), My Blueberry Nights. You know the deal… I haven’t looked at any predictions, opinions, or tweets regarding this upcoming weekend’s potential box office draw. In fact, I haven’t even looked at my box office database (Rentrak Box Office Essentials) because my friends at Focus Features changed the password on the account I was using (this led to me angrily attempting to guess the password incorrectly five times, resulting in a temporary deactivation of the account). Seeing that I’m allowed four incorrect guesses each hour, I will reacquire that password, hopefully, in the near future, unless they were really in a sour mood and decided to change the username as well. Right then, let’s check out the upcoming box office.

You may be skeptical, but I’ve spoken to the executives at Warner Bros., and I have reason to believe that Harry Potter is returning to theaters today for his sixth feature film. Albeit, there still is about an hour remaining until the midnight screenings end so don’t be surprised if Warner Bros. decides to push the opening back another six months or instructs each theater to split its copy of the film in half, creating demand for the November release of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Part II: We Warned You in the Title.” All seriousness aside (anything’s possible), HP looks ready to charm the global box office this week with a Hagrid-esque performance.

It’s been exactly three weeks since the last summer action sequel, “Transformers: Michael Bay ‘10,” opened to a record 62M on a Wednesday, and, based on that “film’s” frighteningly steep decline in recent weeks, it’s safe to say the world is ready to jump back on the Summer-Sequel Express and return to Hogwarts. Although there have been five previous HP films, the only one we need to necessarily analyze is the most recent installment, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, because of its similar release date to The Half-Blood Prince. Phoenix, like Blood Prince (the prequel to “Carrie”), also opened on a Wednesday in the middle of July, grossing a then-record 44M on its opening day. That film went on to collect 140M in its first five days of release (Wed-Sun) and a total of 292M domestically. By comparison, last month’s “Transfat” opened to, once again, 62M on a Wednesday, cheating the public out of roughly 200M in its first five days of release (Wed-Sun) on its way to what will probably be 410M domestically (good enough for 8th all time domestic behind POTC: Dead Man’s Chest).

I hate to upset any Harry Potter fans, but I don’t think HP 6 can reach numbers like 410M domestically for a few reasons. First of all, Harry Potter doesn’t tend to do so well in the United States. The highest any HP film has grossed domestically is 317M, and that was the very first HP film, believe it or not. Surprisingly, out of the 4.4 Billion dollars the five HP films have grossed globally, only 1.4B of that total or 31% has been collected within our borders. Second, Harry Potter 6 is never going to see the type of repeat business some other tent pole releases might witness because it’s part of a very large franchise, and this one doesn’t happen to be the last book in the series. Let me explain: Fans often see a movie for a second time when there are either no plans to create a sequel (yet) or the movie is the last announced installment in a series, meaning that particular film represents the last time a customer can interact with a set of characters or story he/she loves—think Titanic, The Return of the King. Harry Potter 6, while it will see huge upfront demand, won’t last long because there are still two more Harry Potter films waiting to be released. In essence, the problem with adapting a seven-book franchise to the screen is that people will immediately begin to think about the next film in the series after they watch the previous book’s adaption. Third, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince isn’t a very exciting book. It’s merely filler—like our current Pope—an adequate means to a better end.

Yet, there are some reasons why I may be mistaken in estimating the life expectancy of the boy who lived. Not to be undervalued, the tomato-meter is currently showing a 95% out of 107 reviews for HP, meaning the film’s “staying power” could be stronger than previous installments. Aside from the film’s critical reception, we shouldn’t forget that it’s also been two years since the last Harry Potter film or book was released, and, quite frankly, the world needs some more Harry Potter & Co. Ever since WB decided to puss HP back from last November to today, extra buzz and excitement have been spreading around the pic, which can never be bad. Above all else, it’s imperative that HP attracts viewers who have never read the books if it wants to follow in the footsteps of Transformers with a five day opening of 200M. The film’s alleged “dark and sinister” mood should bring in a few illiterate action/effects junkies, and Emma Watson, while she’s certainly no Meagan Fox, is clearly attractive and could help too.

Opening in almost 4,300 theaters, I expect HP 6 to earn 58M on Wednesday en route to a Fri-Sun weekend gross of 90M and a Wed-Sun cume of 178M. In other news, I’d like to congratulate Emma Watson for choosing to attend Columbia next year. If you’re reading this, Emma, you know you want to find your real life Ron Weasley, and who better to play that role than myself? Red hair, boyish charm, athletic bod… need I say more?

July 4th Weekend

What’s good, what’s good. Welcome to another BO forecast (“It’s gonna smell!”—Ali Williams). It’s July 4th weekend, which means I get to witness my two favorite things in the world: Big numbers at the movies and angry vegetarians. Once again, I have not looked at any forecasts regarding this weekend’s box office slate—just reviews and Rentrak box office essentials. Alright then, let us forecast.

Taking advantage of the long weekend, Fox is releasing its third installment in its profitable “Ice Age” franchise: “The Dawn of the Dinosaurs.” I haven’t seen any of the Ice Age films, but from what I understand, “Dawn” chronicles the tale of a wooly mammoth, a saber-tooth tiger, and a sloth as they discover an underground world inhabited by giant dinosaurs. From time to time, we are also given the perverted pleasure of witnessing a curiously malleable squirrel’s repeated attempts at stealing an acorn as he miraculously survives a myriad of unfortunate events. In light of the film’s release, I do believe Michael Bay is, in fact, suing Fox for stealing his idea, frame by frame, for Transformers 3: The Guys Who Fell Got Back Up Again.

The first two mammal-made pics grossed 176M and 195M, opening to weekend takes of 46M and 68M, but they both opened in March (and not on Wednesday’s). The July 4th weekend, on the other hand, is one of the biggest weekends of the year, and I expect to see huge numbers from “Dawn.” I looked up the ten films that have opened to at least 25M on the July 4th weekend since 1999 and found their average opening weekend gross to be just north of 55M (Note: This pertains to the Fri-Sun frame, not Wed-Sun.) With Pixar’s “Up” quickly fading (it dropped over 40% last weekend), higher ticket prices for 3-D screenings, and an increasing number of young parents turning to alcohol in these difficult times, Ice Age could thaw out about 65M from Friday to Sunday and find itself somewhere in the vicinity of 95M from Wednesday-Sunday.

The second wide-release of the weekend is Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies,” starring Johnny Depp, that woman who won the academy award, and a glorified Keanu Reeves. The film follows hot on the path of John Dillinger, the infamous 1930’s bank robber who rose to fame as he stole from the rich and gave to himself. All in all, Dillinger supposedly robbed eleven banks, pretending to be a bank alarm salesman as well as a scout for Hollywood film locations. He also managed to escape from prison twice without using a Rita Hayworth poster or a chisel.

The closest comparison I see to this film is Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster,” which opened to 43.5M in 2007. Starring The Denzel and Russell Crowe, “Gangster” was also a crime-based period piece helmed by an acclaimed director. I don’t expect Enemies to open as big as Gangster for a few reasons. First of all, the trio of Denzel, Crowe, and Ridley Scott is a much bigger BO draw then that of Depp, Mann, and the ill-tempered batman. Second and most importantly, Public Enemies will not attract the lucrative African-American and Latino populations. Time and again, we’ve seen the BO power of the black population, as witnessed by the 30M+ openings of multiple Tyler Perry films, but white American bank robbers, as opposed to black/Latino American gangsters, just won’t attract such broad demographics. Not surprisingly, the California gross of American Gangster (20.8M) more then doubled the total gross of the film in any other state, including New York (9.3M). In fact, three of the top four grossing states for the film include California, Texas, and Florida—and it doesn’t take a sociologist to figure out why.

Another element that could really hurt PE’s chances is the film’s disappointingly flat critical reception. Although Manohla Dargis gave it a NY Times critique’s pick, most other highly influential film critiques have not been as generous with their praise. Any Michael Mann film, aside from Miami Vice, is going to live and die by its reviews and word-of-mouth as it takes aim at a slightly older and more mature population. Sitting at a lackluster 61% on the “tomato-meter,” Public Enemies may not pick up enough steam in time to escape the authorities on a heavily crowded Independence Day Weekend. Opening in 3,100 locations, Public Enemies could steal about 30M from Fri-Sun and get away with 50M from Wed-Sun.

Returning for its second date, Michael Bay’s Transformers will see a noticeable decline this weekend, although the holiday and lack of any big competition will pad its fall. Last week, Transformers opened to an absurd 201M from Wed-Sun, placing it 2M behind The Dark Knight on the list of biggest five-day openings. The Dark Knight went on to gross 533M domestically, good enough for second place on the all time list (Titanic at 600.7M), but Transformers won’t come close to that mark, seeing that it’s a TERRIBLE movie. The film was about as shockingly predictable as Fred Durst’s decision to direct a black family-comedy starring Ice Cube (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1091751/). I recommend that you all read http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php?page=1, regardless of whether you have seen the film or not. It’s certified fresh by me.

I really hope Transformers gets stood up this weekend, but it’s hard not to say that it will gross at least 50M from Fri-Sun, especially given its strong weekday performances—15M on Monday, 13.5M on Tuesday, 11M on Wednesday. At around 235M domestically, Transformers, in all of its patriotic glory, will cross the 300M mark by the end of the weekend, furthering Michael Bay’s cause for the Governorship of California.

Transforecast- The Transformers Edition

What’s good, what’s good. Welcome to this special Tuesday edition of the box-office forecast (I need a good, funny name for this… any suggestions? Suggestive acronyms welcome). Why so special? Because Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opens tomorrow, which means I need to come up with a forecast for it now. As you know by now, I don't look at jack when it comes to the actual predictions... it's all just in my gut, you know... it's truthiness.

If you’ve ever wondered why so many recent summer-sequel blockbusters have chosen to open on Wednesday’s, you’ve come to the right place. Huge sequels like Transformers 2 tend to experience equally huge declines after their first weekend of release. By opening on a Wednesday, Transformers is giving itself an extra two days (Wed-Sun) to make bank (and to destroy some evil bad guy around which its lack-of-a-plot revolves) before it inevitably runs into at least a 50% decline in its second weekend. Believe it or not, by the time Monday rolls around, Transformers will have already taken in about 45%-55% of its final domestic total (I looked up all of the summer-sequel blockbusters that have opened on a Wednesday in the last 10 years and found that the first five days account for, on average, 45% of the total).

So here’s what we know so far: Transformers’ final domestic total is going to be tremendous (>300M) and it has five days to make about half of whatever that final number is. If I wanted to, I could probably pick a pretty large number and write it down as my prediction, but that would be boring. If you really like movies, you like to see people go to the movies as well, making weekends like this a lot of fun because there are so many elements that will affect Shia’s potential numbers, the first of which is opening day gross.

After looking up all of the summer-sequels from the last decade that have grossed at least 200M domestically and have opened on a Wednesday, I created a little stat that I’m going to call the Opening Weekend Multiplier (OWM). OWM=Opening Weekend Gross (Fri-Sun) / Opening Day Gross (Wed). The average OWM for those films was 2.86 (excluding Shrek 2), meaning you could, on average, multiply a summer-sequel’s Wednesday gross by 2.86 to get a rough picture of what that film’s Fri-Sun take would be (whoever’s sitting there wandering what the intercept is, you’re lame). The tricky part, thus, is trying to accurately predict how much Transformers will bank on Wednesday.

Back in 2007, the first Transformers movie opened on a Tuesday (July 4th weekend) with 36M from 4,000 theaters, including Monday evening screenings. This time around, the opening day gross should be much higher for two reasons: 1)Sequels always have higher opening day grosses then their predecessors 2)IMAX theaters are pricey and they fit more people. The record for biggest opening day gross is held by The Dark Night at 67M, but don’t expect Michael Bay and Spielberg to break it because… 1)The Dark Knight opened on a Friday 2)The Dark Knight had amazing reviews 3) Heath Ledger.

There are a few other factors which point to a massive opening for Transformers. First of all, it has absolutely no competition. Like I said last week, Transformers has three weeks until Harry Potter comes out (also on a Wednesday), meaning it should have more staying power than your ordinary summer-sequel. Second, Meagan Fox is hot (and she’s officially single), giving guys (and girls) more reason to see it. Third, it has no sporting events to compete with either (why do you think it wasn’t released last week during the US Open? Shut up, Wimbledon fans). Fourth, the special effects are simply the best in the business (wait until December for James Cameron’s “Avatar,” in which he will, once again, change the way we make blockbusters). Fifth, the marketing campaign has been rock solid. Starting with the all-important super-bowl spot back in February, the transformers have been all over the place since. Best of all, the marketers don’t even have to do a good job because sequels, great special effects, and good-looking women market themselves.

Finally, the prediction…. The first Transformers made $49,000 on its first weekend at Shortpump, for those of you from Richmond, and it made $115,000 at Lincoln Square 13 in New York (which happens to be one of the busiest theaters in the country). This weekend, simply expect bigger numbers. The biggest Wednesday opening ever belongs to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at $44.2M, but it’s soon going to be second on that list. I’d say the ghost of Optimus watches over these transformers and guides them to a Wednesday opening of 50M-55M, grease and spare parts included. Look for a 50% dip on Thursday for around 25M, and expect its opening weekend (Fri-Sun) take to include about 100M-110M portraits of George Washington. Yes, I’m aware that 50M multiplied by 2.86 does not equal 100M-110M, but I think the upfront demand for Transformers is going to be so high that it negatively affects its opening weekend a bit. That said, the Wed-Sun cume could pass the 175M mark, placing it right below The Dark Knight (203.7M) atop the list of biggest 5-day grosses. Then again, you can never be so sure. All we know is the opening is going to be big and that the autobots will certainly follow Optimus Prime’s advice and roll out.

By the way, get ready for “Transformers 3: The guys who fell got back up again” on July 4th weekend 2012. Seriously, that’s the date.

Week of 6/19/09

What’s good, what’s good… a new box-office forecast for a record second week in a row? Crazy, right? Good news, by the way: I’ve kept my promise and have recently learned to read so there shouldn’t be any theater count errors on my part. Once again, these are all my predictions based off of info on rentrak box office essentials. Alright then, why don’t we get at it?

I’m gonna be honest with you… there’s not much happening in the box-office this weekend at all. We’ve got two wide releases, and they’re both comedies that shouldn’t rock the charts too dramatically. For those of you who are new to box-office analyzing, there is a simple explanation for this frustrating dearth of any potential blockbuster release, and it’s called Meagan Fox. That’s right, Transformers 2, arriving this Wednesday, would, undoubtedly, smother any major action/fantasy release scheduled for this weekend, and, as a result, Warner Bros. is waiting three full weeks to release Harry Potter. If you start counting from last weekend (June 12th), Paramount has managed to clear five weeks (two before, three after) of the SUMMER box-office around Transformers’ release, paving an autobahn for the auto-bots to push the record books with no limits. And, surely, they will.

What we’re left with, this weekend, is one… “Year One,” that is. Starring Jack Black and the ever-awkward Michael Cera, “Year One” follows the two social outcasts as they embark on the first road trip ever. From online ads to tv commercials to NBA finals outtakes, the marketing push for One has been pretty solid, but I don’t think this film will do as well as expected for a few reasons. First and foremost, The Hangover is still hanging on to the box office crown, and it doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. Declines for the soon-to-be champ of R-rated comedies have been slim during the week, hovering around the low-twenty percent levels (these refer to the declines experienced from Monday-to-Monday, Tuesday-to-Tuesday, etc.), which is pretty remarkable given the genre. Second, Michael Cera, contrary to popular belief, is not a huge box-office draw. Adam Sandler, Will Ferrel, and the Apatow boys are in a separate league when it comes to hit comedies. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at his resume, which includes Juno, Super Bad, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Juno was a box-office sensation, but Michael Cera had little to do with its success. We can credit most of Juno’s glory to its smart distribution plan (it started off in 7 theaters and gradually went to wide in the coming weeks), it’s great word-of-mouth/reviews, the time of year (winter holidays), the oscar buzz surrounding it and Ellen Page’s performance, and certainly its provocative story line. Sure, Cera’s name helped it a little, but not enough for me to think of him as a leading man. Now, look at Super Bad, another extremely successful film starring Cera. Yet, nobody had ever heard of Michael Cera before Super Bad, meaning his name wasn’t what drew in the audiences. Three things were responsible for the success of Super Bad—1) It was advertised as an Apatow movie 2) It was actually pretty good/funny 3) Most importantly, it had a fantastically cut trailer, which people were talking about months in advance of the film. If I can stress anything, it’s the power of a good movie trailer, regardless of genre Slumdog Millionaire, Pineapple Express, Titanic, 300, etc. That leaves us with Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, a film in which Cera certainly was the leading man and anchor for its potential success. Opening in a 2,400+ theaters, Nick and Norah only grossed $11M in its first weekend, averaging a tepid $4,600 per site. Michael Cera: NOT a safe box-office bet, regardless of his "adorable" awkwardness and attire.

Jack Black, on the other hand, is a legite A-Lister, at least on occasion. Although he has certainly missed the mark with “Margot at the Wedding,” “Tenacious D,” and “Be Kind Rewind,” he has done well with “School of Rock” and “Nacho Libre.” Yet, if you look at his comedies, none of them have come close to the numbers put up by Sandler, Ferrel, Rogen, Rudd, Stiller, etc. Opening in 3,022 locations, Year One will probably collect 22M.

The only other movie opening in wide release is “The Proposal.” Starring Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock, this romantic comedy offers nothing new to the table, whatsoever, although I’m glad to see that Reynolds, following his last performance, in which his mouth was sewn shut as Mutant X in “Wolverine,” has taken a greater artistic challenge by actually having to speak in this film. (He did have a few lines in Wolverine, but not important enough to merit any credit.) Reynolds has been in so many films and so many different genres (horror, comedy, action, romantic comedy, shit), but none of them have grossed more than 65M except for Wolverine. Same goes for Bullock. Her only real “blockbusters” have been “Miss Congeniality” and “Speed,” both of which opened at least more than nine years ago. Suffice it to say, Sandra Bullock has no box-office pull either. What happens if you stick two “stars” with little past success in starring roles of a bland film? Yeah, you get my point. Expect “The Proposal” to get on both knees without putting up much of a fight towards the rest of the box-office with a 15M weekend gross.

We’ve got three holdovers that should continue to bring in audiences this weekend. “Up,” coming off a 30M take from last weekend, should see another small decline of about 35%, which would give it around 20M for a total of close to 230M. I’d expect it to cross the 300M mark eventually, although it may not beat Finding Nemo’s 340M domestic total. Believe it or not, “The Hangover” could put up a pretty good fight against Year One. It only experienced a 27% decline in its second week, but Cera and Black should be able to increase that stat just a little. I’d say Hangover drops 40% and makes about 19M for the frame. Finally, “Pelham 123” had a solid opening last week at 23M and should drop about 45% to around 14M.

Alright, that’s it. Sorry it was a little long. I’ll be back next week when we finally get some real excitement at the box-office with Transformers. Peace. Oh yeah, and I'll post the results later.