Weekend Estimates: Pain's Gainful Weekend

April 28, 2013

With the Summer movie season effectively starting with the first weekend of May these days, the last weekend of April is the last chance for lesser-budgeted movies to grab some of the spotlight. This year, the movie that can hold its head up highest, at least for a few days, is Pain & Gain, which is projected to open in first place with a respectable $20 million, just $6 million less than its reported production budget. Another film that will post an excellent start is Mud, which will most likely just miss out on the top 10, but will pull in about $2.2 million from just 363 theaters for Roadside Attractions, and end with a theater average of $6,000 -- basically the same as Pain & Gain. Both films will be wiped out by Iron Man 3 when it opens on Thursday. The Summer's first behemoth has already picked up $195.3 million internationally.

The Big Wedding will deliver a much less healthy debut for Lionsgate, with $7.5 million expected from 2,633 theaters. That's particularly disappointing given the star-studded cast involved.

Returning films performed mostly in line with expectations, with The Croods once more the strongest week-to-week performer in the top ten. It remains, for now, the second-highest grossing film of 2013, although its $163 million earned over 38 days is now the low end of expectations for what Iron Man 3 will make over three days next weekend.

Limited releases are something of a mixed bag this weekend. Kon-Tiki is the best performer to report so far, with $22,334 expected from two theaters. The Reluctant Fundamentalist can be argued to be having the slightly better weekend though with $32,500 expected from three theaters for an average just shy of $11,000. Other promising debuts will be posted by Midnight's Children, which will debut in the US with $12,200 from two theaters, having already played in Canada, and An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, which will earn about $11,100 from two theaters -- a very solid number, given that it's only running two screenings a day in each location.

- Weekend Estimates

Bruce Nash

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, The Croods, Iron Man 3, Pain & Gain, The Big Wedding, Midnight's Children, Mud, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, Kon-Tiki