Notable Openings This Weekend: Delivery Man, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
May the odds be ever…eh, screw it. I’m not going to finish that joke. This weekend, Katniss Everdeen grabs her bow and arrow and aims to take down a Scrooge McDuck like sack of cash as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire opens nationwide in a bagillion number of movie theaters. In what will most likely be the greatest amount of money ever predicted in the history of these box office predictions thus far, let’s strap ourselves in those weird tubes that rip off The Running Man and do some predicting!
The original Hunger Games shocked the box office to its core when it opened last year at almost $153 Million. This sequel will do better. There’s nothing to really analyze here. Everybody knows about this. There are billboards in your house. It’s here. It’s happening. The only question is will it be the best opening weekend of all time not called Marvel’s The Avengers? The general consensus is that this film could open anywhere between $155-$180 Million. Catching Fire will be on the low end of that number. I just don’t see it doing dramatically better than it’s predecessor. Also, from my understanding there’s no 3D, which is just shocking. Let’s put it this way – Harry Potter is most certainly the same type of audience, and the eighth and final film cracked $169 Million (third highest grossing weekend of all time). That had all the hype you could dream of. This film will fall just short of that, which is nothing to sneeze at. Oh, there’s also another movie opening this weekend.
I get the concept of counter programming. I really do. But Catching Fire is one of those “appeals to everybody” movies. Delivery Man. Seriously? Even if it was opening against nothing, I don’t think it would do very well. It’s not like Vince Vaughn has been lighting the box office on fire lately. The Internship opened at $17 Million, and at least there you had the “Hey, he’s reuniting with Owen Wilson. Remember The Wedding Crashers?” factor. Yeah, people like Chris Pratt, but people also like Michael Fassbender…how did The Counselor do again? Combine all of this with bad reviews, and Delivery Man is just not set up to…deliver. BOOOOOOOOM!
How Will It All Break Down…
Machete Kills will make a miraculous box office recovery and…no, no. Enough kidding around. When the dust settles, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire will become the fourth highest grossing weekend of all time behind Marvel’s The Avengers, Iron Man 3, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 respectively.
TOP 5 BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS
1) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire — $164.5 Million
2) Thor: The Dark World — $18 Million
3) The Best Man Holiday — $16 Million
4) Delivery Man — $14.5 Million
5) Last Vegas — $5.5 Million
