The long President’s Day weekend isn’t quite over and you’ve still got those Martin Van Buren cookies to bake, but the studios have come in with their estimates for the box office. So here we go:
With Valentine’s Day falling on Thursday, three news titles opened that day, with the animated Escape from Planet Earth bowing on Friday. As expected, A Good Day to Die Hard has opened at #1, though not as strong as many (including I) predicted. The fifth John McClane entry, which earned easily the worst reviews of the franchise, is estimated to gross $36.9 million over the five day span. This is below my $45.6M prediction. While critics were harsh, the picture’s CinemaScore grade was a decent B+, indicating audiences weren’t too bothered by it. Still, hefty drop-offs in future weekends seem likely.
Perfectly timed for Valentine’s Day, Safe Haven had a very strong debut with an estimated $33.3 million five day performance, edging out my $32.3M projection. I’ll take credit for my prediction on this one, though. After I posted my guesses on Wednesday, I noticed on Thursday that several other box office gurus had it going quite a bit lower. The combination of this being based on a Nicholas Sparks novel and Valentine’s Day seemed too good a combo not to reach big box office numbers. Having said that, don’t be surprised if it drops big next weekend.
While I’m proud of my Safe Haven number, I continue to underestimate Melissa McCarthy’s Identity Thief, which held up considerably better than I figured in its second weekend. The comedy looks poised to make $30.5 million over the five days, well higher than my $20.3M prediction.
For the weekend’s other two releases, I gave one too much credit and not enough to the other. Beautiful Creatures earned mixed reviews and was going after the Twilight crowd. It didn’t reach them. The picture bombed with an estimated $11.5 million over the five days, well below what I considered a meager $19.4M projection. Clearly, the advertising didn’t connect with audiences and the crowded marketplace didn’t help.
That crowded marketplace, however, does not include much for children to go see. And that fact helped propel the animated Escape From Planet Earth to a solid $21.1 million estimate, well above my $14.2M prediction.
Be sure to check back into my box office world this Wednesday as I predict next weekend, when the horror flick Dark Skies and the action thriller Snitch with The Rock open against the second weekends of Die Hard and Safe Haven. I’ll also probably be more generous to Identity Thief as it enters weekend #3. Stay tuned!
All My Life... I Wanted To Be A Blogster 