Revenge of the Man-Whores

August 12, 2005

Three films open wide this weekend, with another opening in roughly 800 theatres. Of the wide releases, there's a strange pattern with the wider the release the weaker the reviews leading to a battle of quality vs. quantity. Normally quality means little to the overall box office, but hopefully this weekend will be different.

John Singleton is coming off his financially more successful film, 2 Fast 2 Furious and is returning closer to home with Four Brothers. The film is the only film even coming close to earning overall positive reviews and is currently sitting at 59% positive. On the other hand, it does have the smallest of the three wide releases this weekend at 2,533 theatres, but a good ad campaign should overcome that and help the film finish first with $15 million.

It's no surprise that the The Dukes of Hazzard is having a hard time holding onto its box office over the week, earning reviews that are just 17% positive will do that. A 50% drop-off is almost guaranteed while a 60% drop-off is not unexpected; splitting the difference results in a $14 million prediction, but that's probably being a tad generous.

The Wedding Crashers continues its amazing run this weekend adding $12.5 million to its more than $150 million running tally. It's really climbing the yearly chart this weekend topping The Longest Yard for eighth place.

Fourth place should go to the second newcomer this weekend, Skeleton Key. Reviews are the same as Dark Water earned earlier in the year (the main complaint is the incredible predictability of the film with the ending telegraphed right from the beginning). However, this film should earn slightly more at the box office because the competition is much, much weaker. That gives the film an $11 million opening but a quick decline after that.

Lastly we have Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, which has earned mixed reviews ranging from bad to really bad to arguably the worst movie of the year. It has a slim chance at topping the $12.2 million the original opened with in 1999, but struggling to hit $10 million is the most likely scenario.

March of the Penguins continues to add theatres, but has most likely peaked at the box office. This weekend the film should earn another $6 million in 2,063 theatres having reached $30 million yesterday.

The only other new film to have a shot at reaching the top ten is The Great Raid. At the beginning of the month I figured this film would earn between 60% an 70% positive reviews and opened with $12 million to $13 million at the box office. Well, its reviews are currently sitting at 39% positive and with a theatre count at just 819 and a nonexistent ad campaign it will struggle to reach $2.5 million and will likely fail to reach the top ten.

On a happier note, Batman Begins appears to have reached $200 million yesterday.


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Filed under: Wedding Crashers, Batman Begins, The Dukes of Hazzard, La marche de l'empereur, Four Brothers, The Skeleton Key, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, The Great Raid