Box Office Predictions

Star Trek Box Office Predictions. Today in Film Bloggery 05/08/09

By Christopher Campbell posted 6 months ago

Just how much money will the new Star Trek movie make? That’s a question a lot of people are asking today, as we enter the reboot’s opening weekend with favorable reviews and a successful Thursday night (estimates show it made $7 million from advance screenings). Here’s how I put it into perspective: the only Trek installment I ever saw in the theater is Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which is the only film in the franchise to gross more than $100 million. And now I’m planning to see J.J. Abrams’ movie, at least to see if it’s actually that much better and cooler than the rest of the franchise. And I think there are a lot of other people out there who are just as curious as I am.

That people are predicting this thing to make nearly as much money in its first week as Voyage Home earned in total should be more ridiculous an idea than it is. However, rebooted franchises, like Halloween and Friday the 13th have previously surprised us with relatively huge openings, so it’s not terribly unlikely that Star Trek could gross at least $100 million by Monday morning. Then again, without the appeal of humpback whales and a modern day setting…

Let’s see what the other bloggers have to say after the jump:

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Hollywood

Rudin Exits Reader. Trade Roughage 10/10/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

Scott Rudin is taking his name off Stephen Daldry’s The Reader after losing his heavyweight battle with Harvey Weinstein regarding the film’s release schedule. Now that Rudin has left the project, though, can we expect the producer to push his Revolutionary Road even harder for the Oscar? And will Kate Winslet be treated like a poor child of divorce who’s made to pick one parent over the other?
Confirming little more than what the movie blogs have been rumoring all week, Variety reports that super hot right now Josh Brolin is in talks to play the DC Comics gunslinger Jonah Hex. Perhaps with everyone respecting comic book characters so much these days this role will be the one that Brolin finally gets an Oscar nomination for.
I guess when your film stars George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, you can get just any old actress to play the lead female part. But picking the most boring Lost character ever (well, the actress who plays her, anyway) to costar in Grant Heslov’s Men Who Stare at Goats seems a bit counterproductive.
Continuing the trend of making uncomfortable topics funny, Seth Rogen is producing and will co-star in a comedy about cancer from an autobiographical script by HBO producer Will Reiser.
Despite another bunch of box office contenders entering the multiplexes this weekend, including the heavily starred yet topically cursed Body of Lies, the bets are that Beverly Hills Chihuahua will stay on top for a second round.

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Hollywood

Obama and McCain to Empty Cinemas. Trade Roughage 09/26/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

Scheduling the first major presidential debate on a Friday initially seemed like a mistake to me, as I figured most Americans would rather go out tonight than spend the eve of their weekend thinking about politics. Yet now I’m hearing about debate-watching parties, and Variety expects the event to curb moviegoing tonight — that is if the debate even happens. But even if it wasn’t going to be only teens populating the multiplex tonight, Eagle Eye would still rule the weekend, as is currently predicted.
Continuing the studio’s push of The Dark Knight for Oscar, Warner Bros. is giving Academy members the option of being shipped a Blu-Ray screener, which will showcase the film’s Imax-friendly ratio changes, in order for voters to have “the best possible chance to see what we did technically.” Or members could actually go see films as they’re meant to be seen on the big screen. Fortunately, TDK is also being rereleased in January.
Helen Mirren will star as a retired Mossad agent who must return to the job in John Madden’s The Debt, a remake of the 2007 Israeli film Ha-Hov. Though it’s probably more Munich than 007, as long as Mirren’s playing a role reminding me of Daniel Craig, I’m hoping there’ll be a gratuitous scene featuring a bikini-clad Mirren ascending from the sea.
Nick Nolte will guide a pair of newly orphaned vacationing children in the indie Arcadia Lost, which sounds to me like a Greek-set Walkabout meets The Earthling, a film that most made me cry as a child due to the way Ricky Shroder’s parents die in a terrible Winnebago accident.

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Hollywood

Adults Take the Multiplex. Trade Roughage 09/12/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 1 year ago

According to Variety, four new films are competing for the attention of adult moviegoers this weekend, with The Women attracting the +25 ladies and Righteous Kill, Burn After Reading and Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys attracting the men, I guess. The prediction is that Perry’s film will win the box office, because it will attract the black audience while Righteous and Burn are expected to split their (white?) demo. And, well, women don’t actually go to the movies. Right?
Universal and Focus have made a deal to invest in and co-produce the latest from Oldboy director Chan-wook Park. The new film, a risque vampire pic titled Thirst, is apparently the first Korean production financed and picked up for distribution by a U.S. studio prior to its being completed and released locally.
In case you want to know more about the Gore Verbinski-Johnny Depp motion capture film, Rango, Variety has a short follow-up, which spotlights the involvement of ILM. Though it doesn’t really add much to the original news, I’m a little more intrigued now about the future of animated features and whether or not mo-cap companies like ILM, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Animal Logic (none of which, it’s noted, develop their own projects) could soon give Pixar and DreamWorks a run for their money.
Ray Winstone will replace walk-off Robert De Niro in Martin Campbell’s Edge of Darkness, which will apparently actually be good and so doesn’t fit with De Niro’s career goals of late.