Pain and Gain Box Office Prediction

Michael Bay’s action-comedy Pain and Gain hits theaters this weekend and will attempt to nab the #1 spot over the second weekend of Tom Cruise’s Oblivion, which grossed a very solid $38 million this weekend.

Pain and Gain stars Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who have been omnipresent at the multiplexes in recent months. Wahlberg had a monster hit last summer with Ted and a considerable box office disappointment with January’s crime drama Broken City. The Rock, meanwhile, has been very busy. In February, it was the mid-size hit Snitch. In March, the G.I. Joe sequel. Pain and Gain for April. And for May, it’s the sixth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise.

Director Bay is mostly known for gargantuan budgeted action spectacles like Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and the Transformers films. Pain and Gain comes with a relatively tiny $25 million budget so its highly likely to be profitable.

The combo of Wahlberg and Johnson could bring out the male and female audience. The trailers have been decent. There is, of course, still competition for the male audience with Oblivion and the female audience with this weekend’s other new entry The Big Wedding. 

Pain and Gain has the potential to open bigger than my prediction. Anything over its $25 million budget for an opening weekend would be terrific. Anything below $16-17 million would be considered fairly disappointing. I’m going a little closer to the high end.

Will my predicted opening weekend gross be enough to vault it to #1? You’ll have to wait until Wednesday for my Top 5 predictions, but my prediction here is:

Pain and Gain opening weekend prediction: $23.8 million

Later this evening, my forecast for the other opener this weekend, The Big Wedding.