On Thursday, I made my maiden attempt to attempt box office results and I must say, coulda been worse!

I purposely avoided reading the top box office prognosticators before making my picks, so I wouldn’t be influenced by them, which I’ll do every week now.

Everyone knew Skyfall would have a massive opening, but how big was the question. I predicted $82.3 million for the weekend and most other guesses were in the high 70s up to 80 million. It appears that Skyfall actually earned $87.8 million ($90M when factoring in Thursday night grosses), making it by far the biggest Bond opening of all time. With its already huge grosses overseas, the film is certain to become the highest grossing 007 feature ever. As if there was any doubt, audiences can be assured they’ll be seeing Mr. Craig as Mr. Bond for quite a while.

I also predicted the grosses for the weekend #2 and #3 films, which were both in their second weekends. Disney’s Wreck-It-Ralph grossed $33.1 million, slightly less than my $34.5M prediction. Ditto for Robert Zemeckis’s Flight, which earned $15.1M, a little smaller than my $16.2M prediction.

Next Thursday, my predictions will be made that will include the 2nd weekend for 007 and the first wide release weekend for Steven Spielberg’s eagerly-awaited Lincoln.

 

And now, a new feature on the blog in which I will predict the box office results for the weekend every Thursday. 

This weekend, we have one new opening and it’s a massive one at that: the new 007 flick Skyfall. The film has received some of the best reviews of any Bond film ever and the anticipation for it has been growing. Overseas, where it opened a couple of weeks ago, it has drawn in massive box office figures. It’s been four years since 007 has graced the screen, double the time of waiting between the first two Daniel Craig features, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. 

The last, Solace, opened to $67 million four years ago, but I expect more from this outing.

We also have the second weekends of last week’s #1 and #2 movies, Wreck-It Ralph and Flight. Both were critically acclaimed hits and grossed $49 million and $24.9 million, respectively. Additionally, both seemed to be audience pleasers and figure to have relatively small drop-offs, even with the huge debut of Bond this weekend. So here goes and I’ll report back Sunday to see how well or horribly I did with my prognostication. 

Weekend of November 9-11

1. Skyfall

Predicted Gross: $82.3 million

2. Wreck-It Ralph

Predicted Gross: $34.5 million (representing a drop of 32%)

3. Flight

Predicted Gross: $16.2 million (representing a drop of 35%)