The Internship Box Office Prediction

Eight long summers ago, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson struck box office gold with Wedding Crashers, which was the surprise hit of the season with $209 million domestically. Since then, the two actors have seen more flops than hits. Fred Claus? You, Me, and Dupree? The Dilemma? Drillbit Taylor? Hall Pass? The Watch?

You get the idea. So it makes perfect sense that the two stars would team up again to recapture some box office magic. The Internship features Vince and Owen as obsolete salesmen who are forced to start over at Google headquarters. It costars Rose Byrne, John Goodman, and maybe even a surprise actor or two…

The question is: will the reunion of these actors be enough to guarantee solid box office returns? My feeling is – if so, the marketing campaign surrounding the picture is not doing it any favors. I simply haven’t found the trailers to be very funny at all. Some of the humor displayed in the previews looks curiously outdated. And I find the decision of a PG-13 rating to be possibly troubling – Wedding Crashers, after all, is known for its R rated humor.

When The Internship was first announced, there may have been a feeling of excitement about the two leads teaming up again. That anticipation seems to have dissipated. There’s also what I feel will be a real competition for the top spot this weekend. The Ethan Hawke thriller The Purge seems to be running an effective marketing campaign and its numbers could be strong. My prediction post for that will be up either later tonight or tomorrow.

The Internship is an excellent example of a movie that could easily over or under perform. We could see a $30 million opening weekend. We could see a $12 million opening weekend. I think Vaughn and Wilson reunited is most likely to equal a high teens or low-twenties opening weekend.

The Internship opening weekend prediction: $20.7 million