Notable Openings This Weekend: The Wolverine
Get of the way for The Wolverine! Unlike last week’s convoluted crap-fest, there’s really only one movie to watch for this weekend, and it’s Hugh Jackman’s sixth turn as the iconic Wolverine, easily the most popular of all the X-Men characters. Speaking of X-Men, while this film is sure to do well, the X-Men franchise hasn’t been the juggernaut it was in the past.
The series peaked with 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, which brought in a whopping $100+ million dollar opening weekend, but the most recent X-Men film, 2011’s X-Men: First Class, dipped to a shocking $55 million. The biggest reason for this drop though was due to the fact that Wolverine was not in it, despite an unadvertised ten second cameo. Wolverine is finally back, and this time the focus is solely on him. But to really break down how this movie is going to do, we have to take a look at 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Wolverine’s last solo outing.
Despite absolute shit reviews and all the negative buzz you can imagine, Origins still managed to pull in $85 million on its opening weekend. This is proof that Wolverine is the X-Men franchise. The reason why The Wolverine will fall shorter than that total though is because Origins is absolutely despised by people, and just like with The Hangover Part III, The Wolverine will have to suffer for the previous film’s sins.
How Will It All Break Down…
Even though Origins left a bad taste in people’s mouths, people still go crazy for Hugh Jackman’s brilliant portrayal of this character, as they should. The Wolverine clearly looks much better than Origins as well. It will finish lower than that 2009 opening weekend, but still bring in very good business.
TOP 5 BOX OFFICE PREDICTION
1) The Wolverine — $73 Million
2) The Conjuring — $23 Million
3) Despicable Me 2 — $13 Million
4) Turbo — $11 Million
5) Grown Ups 2 — $9.5 Million
