Notable Openings This Weekend: (Already Opened on Christmas) 47 Ronin, Grudge Match, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Wolf of Wall Street
Bah humbug! Yea, that’s right. I have to do Box Office Predictions this week, and it’s just a huge cluster fuck right now. This is ridiculous! Four movies opened on Christmas, Oscar films are expanding, there’s a lot of holdovers, I don’t know what the hell’s going on! I guess I’ll try and sort out the madness. Here’s my grumpy Holiday Edition of Box Office Predictions. Happy Holidays…I guess.
The Hobbit…yeah, that’s still around. I think I’m still in the movie theater watching it. But it did hold over fairly well last week, beating out Ron Burgundy’s mustache. You can’t keep a good Gandalf down I guess. Scorsese & DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street) will be its biggest competition. The two have been neck and neck all week so far. DiCaprio might be one of the last pure movie stars left who can open a movie. I think he was a big part of The Great Gatsby’s $50 Million opening weekend over the summer. Add in Scorsese, and this will be a fight to the finish.
Ben Stiller joins the fray as well. Sure, why not. In another time of year, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty might do well, but its just too crowded right now. Combine that with the subpar reviews, and Mitty is more then likely to remain a secret at the box office. Yup. Those puns don’t grow on trees, folks. It won’t be a complete disaster, but this movie will come and go pretty quickly.
Then we have Grudge Match and 47 Ronin, two movies that will melt faster then Frosty the Snowman. What were they thinking with these release dates? These movies belong in March or something. First of all, I need to rant! I saw an ad for Grudge Match during Sunday Night Football, and they were using twitter reviews to try and sell the movie! Twitter reviews!? Are you kidding me with this? Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro are legends, but when you show a clip that makes a joke about Stallone’s character punching in a meat packing plant, I’m not going to your movie. This looks awful, and nobody cares. 47 Ronin looks like it could be halfway decent, but during this time of year, that’s not selling many tickets.
How Will It All Break Down…
I’m going to be an absolute mess as far as the numbers go, but I’ll give it a shot. The interesting battle is between The Hobbit and The Wolf of Wall Street. With The Hobbit in its third weekend, I just think there’s going to be more of an appetite for the newer entry.
TOP 5 BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS
1) The Wolf of Wall Street — $26 Million
2) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug — $24.5 Million
3) Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues — $18 Million
4) The Secret Life of Walter Mitty — $14 Million
5) American Hustle — $13 Million
