Notable Openings This Weekend: Divergent, Muppets Most Wanted
After last weekend’s crap-fest (Need for Speed), this week’s box office is a lot more intriguing. It’s the young-adult novel crowd vs. puppets, or Muppets rather. While I don’t think Muppets Most Wanted has any chance of beating Divergent, I’m very curious to see how much money these movies do ultimately end up making, as they are two very difficult films to predict. We got no time for terrible Fozzie jokes, so let’s get right to those predictions.
Unless you’re Harry Potter, Twilight, or The Hunger Games, young-adult book adaptations haven’t exactly fared well at the box office. I Am Number Four. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. The Host. And so on and so on. All these movies act like there will be a no-brainer sequel, but it rarely happens. From what I gather, Divergent may actually have a chance at becoming a legit franchise. First off, they got actual talent with Shailene Woodley and Kate Winslet, so there’s that. It’s not crazy to think Shailene Woodley has Jennifer Lawrence-ish potential. She’s already proven quite a bit in Alexander Payne’s The Descendants. Unfortunately, these trailers have looked absolutely horrendous, so I’m just not sure there’s going to be much of an audience other than the die hard fans of the series, which is still a lot. Divergent will win the weekend handedly, but its sequel chances will be questionable.
For as big a Muppets fan as I am, I’m just not excited about this sequel. To be honest, I felt the previous film was extremely disappointing. They captured a little bit of what made the Muppets special, but only just a little. I’m sorry, I thought this was called The Muppets. Why is the first half hour Jason Segel dancing in the streets? What the hell are Selena Gomez, James Carville, Manny from Modern Family, and 95 other useless cameos doing in a Muppet movie? WHERE ARE THE MUPPETS!?
But I digress – I’m not here to review the Muppets. I’m here to predict its box office. The Muppets are a tough nut to crack because you always have people who say “Oh yeah, I love the Muppets,” but then they don’t show up for the actual movies. The real problem is that the Muppets don’t appeal to kids of this generation. At this point, the Muppets should be for the adults who liked them as kids, but the trailers suggest they are still trying to play this as a kid’s film, so I’m not entirely sure who this movie is for, which never makes for a good box office result. Yeah, Ricky Gervais and Tina Fey are in it, but they only have niche fan bases. At the end of the day, it’s still the Muppets, and that should garner a respectable box office, but nothing special.
How Will It All Break Down…
The new films will open at the top, but with slightly disappointing results.
TOP 5 BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS
1) Divergent — $42 Million
2) Muppets Most Wanted — $23 Million
3) Mr. Peabody & Sherman — $14.5 Million
4) 300: Rise of an Empire — $10.5 Million
5) Need for Speed — $9.5 Million
Related Articles:
Book Review: Divergent (Lisa Pikaard)
Trailer Tuesday: Muppets Most Wanted (Logan J. Fowler & Bill Bodkin)
Last week’s crap fest NFS was number one in the world and not all markets were open. Sorry but you will have to comment on the sequel.