This Friday, yet another remake/reboot of a classic horror entry comes to us as Poltergeist is released. 20th Century Fox is hopeful that the brand name will bring moviegoers in over the long Memorial Day weekend. It’s been 33 years since the Tobe Hooper directed and Steven Spielberg produced original and this reboot stars Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie Dewitt, and Jared Harris.
The high profile May release is a bit surprising and one wonders if this might have been better geared toward an October rollout. Truthfully, this seems to be flying a bit under the radar and is likely to settle for a second place debut at best behind Tomorrowland and maybe behind holdovers Pitch Perfect 2 and Mad Max: Fury Road. Certainly this could over perform, but that possibility is not reflected in my estimate.
Poltergeist opening weekend prediction: $22.5 million (Friday to Sunday prediction), $29.3 million (Friday to Monday prediction)
Disney is hoping that over the Memorial Day weekend, a wide swath of moviegoers will choose to make the trip to Tomorrowland. The sci fi adventure opens Friday with a reported $190 million budget and is directed by Brad Bird, who made Pixar classics The Incredibles and Ratatouille and had a successful debut in live action with 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Bird shares screenplay credit with Damon Lindelof, co-creator of Lost. George Clooney headlines a cast that features Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie, Kathryn Hahn, Tim McGraw and Judy Greer.
The studio has been successful in keeping the plot details of Tomorrowland closely under wraps and it could succeed in creating a curiosity factor among audiences. The pic looks to appeal to family audiences and sci fi lovers. The Memorial Day release indicates confidence from Disney. One must wonder, however, if all the secrecy could keep some away since most summer releases are sequels and reboots based on known properties.
I could envision Tomorrowland opening in a similar fashion to Super 8, which premiered four summers ago to $35 million. Due to its four day holiday rollout, I’ll say it manages to climb a bit higher than that, albeit with one more day included in the grosses.
Tomorrowland opening weekend prediction: $33.4 million (Friday to Sunday prediction), $44.6 million (Friday to Monday prediction)
Summer 2015’s sequel and reboot mania kicks into high gear this weekend as the critically acclaimed Mad Max: Fury Road (arriving thirty years after the last Max feature) and musical comedy Pitch Perfect 2 hit theaters. You can read my detailed prediction posts on each of them here:
Both should make quite an impact. Fury Road has been blessed with truly awesome trailers and TV spots and its current 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes inspires supreme confidence. Pitch Perfect 2 is the follow-up to a cult hit three years ago and it is also receiving favorable reviews and should capture a hefty young adult/female audience. I look for both to achieve openings north of $40 million.
That likely means Avengers: Age of Ultron will fall to third in its third weekend after two weeks on top, barring the unlikely scenario of the two newbies not meeting expectations. The Reese Witherspoon/Sofia Vergara flop Hot Pursuit should dip to fourth with The Age of Adaline rounding out the top five.
And with that, my predictions the weekend:
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
Predicted Gross: $45.4 million
2. Pitch Perfect 2
Predicted Gross: $42 million
3. Avengers: Age of Ultron
Predicted Gross: $36.8 million (representing a drop of 52%)
4. Hot Pursuit
Predicted Gross: $7.2 million (representing a drop of 48%)
5. The Age of Adaline
Predicted Gross: $4.1 million (representing a drop of 31%)
Box Office Results (May 8-10)
Avengers: Age of Ultron easily maintained its box office dominance, but its 59% drop-off in weekend #2 was a bit steeper than estimated. The Marvel sequel took in $77.7 million, below my $90.6M prediction. The ten day total stands at $313 million. While the numbers it’s accomplishing are gargantuan, this follow-up has no realistic shot of reaching the $623M achieved by the 2012 predecessor.
The Reese Witherspoon/Sofia Vergara comedy Hot Pursuit was savaged by critics and audiences responded in kind with a weak $13.9 million debut, far below my $21.3M projection. Look for this dud to fade fast.
Leftovers populated the rest of the top five and they all experienced smaller dips that I estimated. The Age of Adaline was third with $5.8 million (I predicted $3.5M) and its total is at $31 million. Furious 7 took fourth with $5.4 million (I said $3.5M) for an overall haul of $338M. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 rounded out the top five with $5.3 million (I predicted $3.2M) and its cume sits at $58M. Last and least… the Jack Black comedy rolled out on approximately 1000 screens and sputtered with a putrid $469,000 – not coming close to even my meager $1.7M projection.
That’ll do it for now, folks! Be sure to check this coming weekend for my Tomorrowland and Poltergeist predictions. As always, next Monday I’ll bring you full predictions and results from the coming weekend. Until then…
In 2012, the musical comedy Pitch Perfect became a sleeper hit at the box office grossing $65 million and becoming an even larger success when it reached the home video market. Three years later its sequel has earned a plum summer release and considerably higher expectations.
Returning cast members Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, and Brittany Snow are in the mix along with Hailee Steinfeld and a new director, Hunger Games actress Elizabeth Banks. While Mad Max and The Avengers will duke it out for the male audience, Pitch Perfect 2 should score with females and teens.
There is little question that this sequel should easily eclipse the domestic gross of its predecessor. It could find itself in a close race with the aforementioned Max. I think it’ll earn a bit less but Universal Pictures should be quite pleased with the results.
Pitch Perfect 2 opening weekend prediction: $42 million
A franchise will be reborn next Friday when Mad Max: Fury Road is unveiled in theaters. It’s been an entire 30 years since the title character has appeared on the silver screen. The original trilogy of dystopian future action flicks made a little known Aussie actor named Mel Gibson a star.
This time around Tom Hardy (of Bane fame) is Max with Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult in the supporting cast. George Miller, director of the first trilogy which dates back to 1979 (like me), is behind the camera once again.
There is no doubt that a generation or more of younger moviegoers don’t have much of a connection to the Max character. Yet my suspicion is that Fury Road will open very solid and the absolutely terrific trailers only help. The return of Max could yield an opening gross in the mid 40s as I see it.
Mad Max: Fury Road opening weekend prediction: $45.4 million
Only one new film is daring to even challenge the second weekend of the Avengers squad and that would be Hot Pursuit, the cop comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara. It will attempt to bring in the female crowd and you can read my detailed prediction post on it here:
While I have Pursuit getting off to a pretty decent start, nothing will stand in the way of Iron Man and company reigning supreme for two weeks in a row. The big question is how far Ultron falls in its second frame. Will it drop the 50% that its 2012 predecessor did or in the 58% range of Iron Man 3 in 2013? I’ve got it dropping somewhere in between, though closer to the former (more on Avengers opening weekend further down).
The rest of the top five should be littered with leftovers all making under $4 million. The Jack Black/James Marsden comedy The D Train is only opening on around 700 screens and I’ll predict $1.7 million for it, which would leave it outside the top five.
And with that, my predictions for the weekend:
1. Avengers: Age of Ultron
Predicted Gross: $90.6 million (representing a drop of 52%)
2. Hot Pursuit
Predicted Gross: $21.3 million
3. Furious 7
Predicted Gross: $3.5 million (representing a drop of 48%)
4. The Age of Adaline
Predicted Gross: $3.5 million (representing a drop of 45%)
5. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
Predicted Gross: $3.2 million (representing a drop of 46%)
Box Office Results (May 1-3)
All prognosticators had one question when it came to Avengers: Age of Ultron: would it manage to have the largest domestic opening of all time and beat out the $207.4 million record of The Avengers? I predicted it would with an estimate of $212.7 million.
And I and many others were wrong and you probably have American Pharoah, Blake Griffin, Tim Duncan, Floyd Mayweather, and Manny Pacquiao to thank. Ultron still performed gangbusters with $191.2 million, posting the second all-time domestic debut. Yet the sports bonanza that took place all day and night Saturday likely kept it from setting the record. Still – don’t expect to hear much complaining from Disney or Marvel.
Holdovers populated the rest of the top five with all pictures dropping further than I thought they would, due to Avengers and all the weekend activity. Furious 7 was second with $6.6 million (I said $9.6M) and it lifted its cume to $331M. The Age of Adaline took third in its second weekend with $6.2 million ($8M predicted here) and its ten day total is $23M. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 was fourth with $5.8 million (I said $8.7M) and it’s made $51M at press time. Finally, Home was fifth with $3.4 million (my projection: $5.8M) and its total is $158M.
I went into Fifty Shades of Grey with the same open minded attitude that its central character Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) goes into with her unconventional relationship with Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). I was completely unfamiliar with the source material, though certainly aware of the wild popularity of the E.L. James novel it’s based upon. And I knew the breathless anticipation of its fans due to their love of the book. I’ve heard some writers claim that this film adaptation improves on the novel and I’m skeptical. 1) That’s normally not the case and 2) It must be a really bad book.
Fifty Shades is essentially a soft core porn with higher production values and admittedly lovely cinematography. The soundtrack is decent too. This is where my praise ends. The picture is also a boring and overlong melodrama with subpar acting and a one note screenplay that utterly fails to generate any genuine interest in the leads.
Anastasia is an about to be college grad majoring in English literature who meets Christian, a wealthy business magnate. Sparks fly in short order and she soon learns that his sexual tastes lie in the world of sadomasochism and bondage. Not only is Anastastia not accustomed to that world, she’s still a virgin. This sets off a crisis of conscience for Ms. Steele that goes on and on and interminably on. One minute she’s into it. The next she isn’t. Christian does what he can to get her into it while yawningly explaining his troubled backstory. We meet both of their families who add nothing. The next crisis of conscience arrives. Tears flow. Beyoncé song. Sex scene. Repeat.
Even when certain films or novels become cultural phenomenons, which this is, and I don’t enjoy them – I can usually understand why they became so popular. I’m stumped with Fifty Shades of Grey. As mentioned, there’s little that separates it from a Cinemax flick that airs at two in the morning. At least those pics know they’re trash. Perhaps some roles will come Johnson and Dornan’s way to show their capabilities but we don’t see it here. For all the talk about punishment in the two hours of this movie, we the audience receive the lion’s share of it. Not in a good way either.
Looking to make the kind of loot that the Sandra Bullock/Melissa McCarthy entry made two summers ago, Hot Pursuit opens this Friday. The comedy stars Reese Witherspoon and Modern Family’s Sofia Vergara. Oscar winner Witherspoon is the bumbling cop protecting Vergara’s witness character.
Reviews have yet to surface and the trailers don’t inspire a whole lot of confidence. There’s also the matter of Avengers: Age of Ultron’s sophomore weekend, in which it should continue to easily dominate. Still, Reese has had a pretty solid track record in this genre, with hits like Legally Blonde, Sweet Home Alabama and Four Christmases. Yet that luck didn’t extend to her last comedy, 2012’s This Means War, which opened to just $17 million and petered out at $54 million domestic.
Pursuit should manage to make more than that and I’ll estimate a fairly decent low 20s premiere.
Hot Pursuit opening weekend prediction: $21.3 million
This is the kind of blog post that David Letterman would hate.
As the end is upon us for the host’s finale culminating a record setting 33 year run in late night TV, we have witnessed Dave’s genuine discomfort when his favorite guests bid their heartfelt tributes to him. For a very long time, the words heartfelt and Letterman didn’t mix and still mostly don’t. That has changed a bit in the last few years. We undoubtedly saw it when Dave returned the week following 9/11 and created a landmark moment where he somehow found the words to encapsulate the country’s mood. We’ve seen it occasionally when talking about his son Harry. And we’ve seen it with the praise of his staff members and personalities on the program, some of whom have been with him the whole ride.
The readers of this blog may have seen previous posts in which I discuss my personal take on my love of movies.
As I’ve stated before, for so many movie fans, the medium is simply an entertaining diversion. For others like me, it’s much more. Same goes for television and the people and characters who populate it. If you’re not a Letterman fan, this post likely won’t make much sense to you – so there’s your warning, ladies and gentlemen!
Simply put, David Letterman and his show have had an influence on me and not in a minor way. He’s been hosting his show, either on NBC at 12:30 or CBS at 11:30, for my entire cognizant life. His sense of humor has greatly informed my own and not in a minor way.
I count myself lucky to come from a family of people whose humor instincts fall on the side of irony and sarcasm. Like Dave’s. It’s in many ways a Midwestern comedic sensibility and last time I checked, Indiana and Ohio are in that region. David Letterman grew up in the same region of Indiana and at the same time as my mother. I believe she told me once it’s possible they went to the same prom at Broad Ripple High School.
Right around the time I was really getting into movies, I was REALLY also into Letterman. It was around 1993 when Dave moved over to CBS after he lost The Tonight Show to Jay Leno. I would tape his show every night on VHS and watch them usually more than once. He was a comedy genius to me just as he has been to so many. Among those names are people like Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel and Howard Stern. Those kinds of people have considered him to be the real King of Late Night for the last couple of decades and the true heir to Johnny Carson’s throne. No offense to Jay Leno, but his show simply can’t hold a candle to the influence that Dave has had. If you wanna get technical, Leno’s career is because of his exposure on Letterman’s program in the 1980s.
Those endless VHS viewings on Dave’s early Late Show era developed my idea of humor. I was in junior high at the time. Everyday at lunch, I would present a Top Ten List to my schoolmates and it was mostly jokes about our group of friends. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t deliver that list with Letterman’s timing and mannerisms. Don’t get me wrong – I probably failed miserably but it was a helluva lotta fun. So… you could say Dave has been an important cultural figure in my lifetime.
In 2005, I was able to attend a taping of the show at the Ed Sullivan Theater. It was literally as if someone pulled me into my TV set. Surreal. I’ve been fortunate to see some celebrities in my life. With Dave, I was legitimately star struck.
I will leave it to the professionals to write their columns discussing Dave’s amazing history on the air. The classic interviews and musical moments and on and on. I just had to talk a little about what he’s meant to me. I fully understand that just as movies are that perfectly understandable diversion to many, Letterman is only that guy you sometimes fall asleep to. He’s been a whole lot more for me.
David Letterman has paved the way for so many who’ve followed him in the comedy world. That’s called a legacy.
David Letterman has more than carried on the legacy of his idol Johnny Carson and become the most important comedic figure in his format for the last 30 years plus. That’s called a legend.
On a significantly tinier scale, David Letterman has (unbeknownst to him) created endless hours of entertainment and helped a kid in northwest Ohio figure out what he found to be truly funny in this crazy world we live in. That’s called gratitude.
The 2015 Summer Movie Season officially kicks off this Friday and there’s a rather big release to start things off: Avengers: Age of Ultron, Marvel’s sequel to the third highest grossing picture of all time. The event film stands a very legitimate shot at scoring the largest opening weekend in domestic box office history (breaking its predecessor’s record) and I’m predicting it will – barely. You can read my detailed prediction post on it here:
No other new release would dare stand in the way of Iron Man, Captain America, and their superhero compadres – so the rest of the top five will be populated by spring leftovers. Furious 7 will fall to the runner-up spot with Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, The Age of Adaline, and Home behind it.
And with that, my predictions for the weekend:
1. Avengers: Age of Ultron
Predicted Gross: $212.7 million
2. Furious 7
Predicted Gross: $9.6 million (representing a drop of 46%)
3. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
Predicted Gross: $8.7 million (representing a drop of 41%)
4. The Age of Adaline
Predicted Gross: $8 million (representing a drop of 40%)
5. Home
Predicted Gross: $5.8 million (representing a drop of 29%)
Box Office Results (April 24-26)
As expected, Furious 7 led the box office for the fourth weekend in a row with $17.8 million, a bit higher than my $15.6M estimate. The massive hit has taken in $320 million so far.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 also managed to surpass my prediction in its second weekend with $14.7 million as compared to my $12M projection. The Kevin James sequel won’t reach the heights of the original, but it’s grossed a solid $43 million in ten days of release.
The romantic drama The Age of Adaline had a fairly decent roll out with $13.2 million, right on target with $13.3M prediction. It may hold up OK in subsequent weekends.
The animated Home took fourth with $8 million, outpacing my $6.5M estimate and its total is at $153M. #5 belonged to horror pic Unfriended in weekend two with $6.1 million, just under my $6.9M prediction and it stands at $25 million.
Critically acclaimed British sci-fi import Ex Machina opened sixth with $5.4 million (below my $7.1M projection, but still a pretty impressive start).
Finally, war drama Little Boy tanked in 13th place with just $2.7 million, just ahead of my $2.1M estimate.
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