Sink or Swim for a Pair of Summer Flicks
May 11, 2006
The second weekend of summer is looking soft this year with Mission: Impossible 3 getting off to a slower than expected start last weekend and buzz surrounding Poseidon being rather weak.
The good news is that both those films should top last year's winner and that should lead to another week of year-to-year growth.
This should be a very, very close race for top spot with both Mission: Impossible 3 and Poseidon coming in at about around $25 million.
Poseidon is a remake of a classic disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure.
Unfortunately, the new version isn't earning the same level of critical appeal, nor is the popular buzz that great.
The best case scenario has the film earning $40 million this weekend and more than $125 million overall, but with the problems above that seems unlikely.
Most likely, it will earn $25 million over the weekend and around $75 million in total.
This will put its total box office well below that of the original, which opened nearly 25 years ago.
Even if the film does make it to $125 million, the ticket sales will show a huge drop-off.
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Last weekend Mission: Impossible 3 barely topped the worst case scenario numbers by earning $47.7 million.
This weekend, the worst case scenario has the film falling by 60%, which would leave it with just $19 million.
Even a 50% drop off will leave it below $24 million.
It should avoid that fate with $25 million and if it beats expectations, it could even top the box office charts for the second weekend in a row.
Given the film's reviews it should have no problem holding onto most of its audience for at least one more week, but after that the competition will start squeezing it out and cutting into its theatre count.
Next up is Just My Luck.
The latest from Lindsay Lohan is earning some of the weakest reviews of her career and it seems likely it will also be one of her weakest performing films at the box office.
There's a decided lack of buzz surrounding the film and odds are it will struggle to reach $12 million over the weekend and $35 million overall.
If those numbers turn out to be overly optimistic, it could fail to top Confessions of a Teenaged Drama Queen, making it the lowest grossing film of her career.
Fourth place should go to R.V. with around $7 million.
That will give the film $40 million after three weeks of release, which is well below original expectations and equally below what it needs to make to show a profit.
Although, with its appeal to a younger demographic, it should do well on the home market and eventually go into the black.
There are three films that will be battling out for fifth place.
Stick It, United 93, and An American Haunting should all earn around $3 million. Also, since all three movies were relatively inexpensive to make, they are all well on their way to profitability.
The final wide release of the week is Goal!, but with a theatre count of just a hair over 1,000 calling it a wide release is a bit of a stretch.
The reviews are the best of the three wide releases of the week, but with a Tomatometer reading that is currently just 50%, it's hardly a selling point.
Add in the lack of interest that soccer films usually generate here, and it might struggle just to reach $2 million over the weekend and there is a real chance it could miss the top ten altogether.
Filed under: Mission: Impossible III, R.V., Poseidon, United 93, Stick It, Just My Luck, Goal! The Dream Begins, An American Haunting