Bold Box Office Predictions: July 31-August 2, 2015
Notable Openings This Weekend: Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Vacation
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ignore Vacation this weekend. Well, that’s according to my review, anyway. Yeah, that already opened on Wednesday. So not only is Vacation a bad movie that I had to suffer through, but it makes it harder for me to predict the weekend box office because of its stupid mid-week opening. I’m sure the studio is really concerned about me though. While Vacation is certainly one of the big new releases, it sure as hell isn’t taking down Mission: Impossible. Aside from the third entry, this franchise has been fairly consistent, and the reviews are good. But let’s get to the predicting, as this article will self-destruct in five seconds.
Maybe Tom Cruise isn’t the box office draw he once was, but the Mission: Impossible franchise is certainly still good for him. While the last entry didn’t break down the doors opening weekend, it held strong for a while, and brought in just over $200 million domestically. You’ll see the same happen again, although this weekend should be even larger, as it’s not exactly dealing with strong holdovers (Pixels second week/Ant-Man third). There’s not much to say here – it’s a Mission: Impossible movie.
Vacation is more of a mixed bag. It sort of still has brand name value, but come on – is there anybody out there who still gets excited about a Vacation movie? Ed Helms is a solid draw, but he’s usually a supporting comedic headliner. The initial preview got a good response, but the reviews have been bad. What does that all mean? It will do solid, but not good enough for a Vacation 2, or Vacation 6 rather, or Vacation: The Sixth Vacation Overall, But the Second Where Rusty is the Main Character. I don’t know. I can’t keep these franchises straight anymore.
HOW WILL IT ALL BREAK DOWN…
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation will over perform, Vacation will collect a solid payday for a Rated-R comedy, and Pixels will fall behind Ant-Man and Minions.
1. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation – $58 Million
2. Vacation – $24 Million
3. Ant-Man – $14 Million
4. Minions – $12.5 Million
5. Pixels – $11 Million
======================================================================================================
Daniel Cohen is the Film Editor for Pop-Break. Aside from reviews, Daniel does a weekly box office predictions column, and also contributes monthly Top Tens and Op-Ed’s on all things film. Daniel is a graduate of Bates College with a degree in English, and also studied Screenwriting at UCLA. He can also be read on www.movieshenanigans.com. His movie crush is Jessica Rabbit. Follow him on Twitter @dcohenwriter.
======================================================================================================
