Box Office Predictions: July 26-28

After an onslaught of four new pictures last weekend, there’s only one major wide release coming to theaters this Friday: The Wolverine, the sixth entry in the profitable X-Men franchise. I wrote an extensive post regarding its opening on Sunday. You can find it here:

https://toddmthatcher.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/the-wolverine-box-office-prediction/

Hugh Jackman should easily rule the weekend, but it will be interesting to see how last weekend’s champ The Conjuring holds up. It debuted to a strong $41.9 million last weekend. Horror flicks usually suffer a huge drop in their sophomore frames. However, this may not be case here. The Conjuring is a critical hit that audiences seem to dig as well. It earned a solid A- Cinemascore grade. In comparison, earlier 2013 horror hits Mama only got a B- and The Purge earned a weak C grade. If Conjuring fell more than 50% this weekend, it wouldn’t be surprise but I’m not sure it falls quite that far.

Despicable Me 2 should fall in the low-40s range (just as last week), but Turbo may not fall quite that much. It had a weak debut last weekend ($21.3 million over the regular weekend), but it earned an A Cinemascore grade and some family audiences could catch up to it this weekend.

Rounding out the top five, Grown Ups 2 is likely to lose roughly half its audience again. The indie comedy The Way, Way Back with Steve Carell and Toni Collette expands to 650 theaters. I’ll predict it opens towards with $2.7 million, well outside the top five. The same fate is likely to befall the romantic comedy The To-Do List, opening in nearly 600 theaters. I’ll predict a $2 million opening for it. The indie picture expanding in the most theaters this weekend is Fruitvale Station, which has received critical acclaim and Oscar buzz. The drama expands to just over 1000 theaters and I’ll actually predict it does quite well with $6.7 million.

And now… my top five predictions for the weekend:

1. The Wolverine

Predicted Gross: $67.4 million

2. The Conjuring

Predicted Gross: $22.1 million (representing a drop of 47%)

3. Despicable Me 2

Predicted Gross: $14.6 million (representing a drop of 41%)

4. Turbo

Predicted Gross: $13.8 million (representing a drop of 35%)

5. Grown Ups 2

Predicted Gross: $10.2 million (representing a drop of 49%)

As always, I’ll post updates throughout the weekend on the Facebook page with final results on the blog Sunday!