The Jackie Robinson biopic 42 scored an impressive opening atop the box office this weekend, grossing $27.4 million. This is slightly higher than my $24.7M projection. The news gets even better for the pic: it received a rare A+ Cinemascore grade, meaning audiences are clearly loving it. Its long-term prospects look quite positive and I would expect small drop-offs in the next couple of weekends.
All positive stuff with 42… not so much for Scary Movie V. As the Die Hard franchise showed just a couple of months ago, the fifth time is not exactly the charm for franchises lately and that held true for the Scary Movie series. While the two previous installments both grossed over $40 million in their opening weekend, #5 struck out with only $14.1 million, below my $22.6M estimate. This is likely the nail in the coffin for the 13 year old series or it may be relegated to straight-to-DVD status from now on.
Numbers 3-6 played out pretty much as expected among holdovers. The Croods placed third with $13.1 million (a bit below my $14.3M projection), G.I. Joe: Retaliation was fourth with $10.8 million (my prediction: $10.8M… bam), last weekend’s winner The Evil Dead dropped far to fifth with $9.4 million (I projected $9.1M), and the Jurassic Park re-release was sixth with $8.8 million (I said $8.8M… bam again). Not too shabby.
The Ryan Gosling/Bradley Cooper crime thriller The Place Beyond the Pines expanded its theater count and grossed a solid $3.8 million, slightly above my $3.3M projection. Another expanded title, Danny Boyle’s Trance, didn’t fare as well with a meager $896,000, below my $1.9M projection.
Be sure to check back tomorrow for my projection on next weekend’s big release, the sci-fi thriller Oblivion with Tom Cruise. And don’t forget to check out www.boxofficeace.com, the new website that I’m pleased to be a part of. You can actually find all my box office predictions for 2013 on that great new site!
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