The Premiere Box Office Prediction Game Site.
A new box office gaming site from Movie Mavericks. Predict opening weekend numbers to become the Box Office Ace!
Every week we’ll be placing our predictions for opening box office weekends for the biggest films in release this year, 2012, here on this page. Follow along with us and leave a comment with your expectations and predictions for the weekend. We get the bar value from the Hollywood Stock Exchange derivatives. All numbers are in millions and rounded to the nearest hundred thousand. We are carrying a running total of how far off we are by weekend, the person with the smallest number wins. We are doing three day weekends only, no four or five day holiday weekends allowed. There can be only one box office prediction maverick, who will it be?
You can use the pagination at the bottom to skip to a past weekend.
Weekend #52, Dec 28-30, 2012
Difference Running Totals:
Trevor: $1036.4
Jason: $985.9
Django Unchained
HSX Bar: $30
Trevor: $23
Jason: $22
Actual: $30.1
Les Miserables
HSX Bar: $30
Trevor: $28
Jason: $26
Actual: $27.3
Parental Guidance
HSX Bar: $10
Trevor: $9
Jason: $14
Actual: $14.6
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see The Dark Knight Rises go over $200M, and the only reason I’m picking it to go under is due to the running time and the fact that it’s (thankfully) not in 3D.
$198M
Due to the tragedy in Colorado, I think the numbers are going to be skewed and the film isn’t going to perform the way it would have had nothing happened.
It’s unfortunate, because people are going to think negatively about the movie going experience all because of one psychopath.
Yes, it does seem to be having a negative impact on some people’s viewing of the film – I’ve had friends who said they found it difficult to separate the violence in Colorado from that happening in the film. That being said I doubt this will steer a whole lot of people from going out and seeing the flick, the impact will probably be small and the I bet that the numbers were going to be lower than we predicted to begin with.
I actually had someone email me saying “will I be safe if I go to see it”, and I thought she was kidding at first. After speaking to her, I then had another handful of people tell me point blank that they weren’t going to see it in the theaters for a few weeks if at all because of what happened.
I agree that the numbers were going to be lower, but I think it may end up costing the studio a slightly bigger opening.
Trevor, I didn’t listen to Friday’s podcast yet…what did you think of the film?
Hi guys!
I’m anxious to see Savages, and glad to see that it performed pretty decent in its opening weekend. I guess there shouldn’t be much surprise as to what Katy Perry did (my kids just asked me to take them to see this..wtf!). Amazing Spider-Man did about what most people (except for Trevor and myself) expected it to do.
I’ve never been able to get into the Ice Age films. My wife takes the kids to see them, and she loves them (the kids and the movies). It seems that there a massive fan base to these, so expect a big number. – $63M
I don’t know, I think in the 60’s is too high for this franchise, it hit that back with the second one and first one with inflation but those were March releases. When the third one came out a few years ago in July it only grossed in the 40’s. This one’s a difficult one to gauge, but in the end I went a little lower and think this should do in the 50’s or 40’s (I put it at 55).
I’m amazed Katy Perry made anything at all, and even underperforming as it was it was so cheap that it’ll make money in the end. And Savages over performing like that is strange, I thought people would have been turned off, but there isn’t any real violent stuff out now or even big action movies, there’s superhero movies, but not action flicks, until next month that is.
I thought Spidey had a little more in him, as you did, but still a great gross for a too soon reboot and in line with other franchise reboots.
UGH!! I really shit the bed this week. I really thought that IA4 would fall in line with the other animated films that have come out this year, and over perform the same way they had.
Oh well, onto the juggernaut that is The Dark Knight Rises…Do you think we get our 2nd $200 million dollar opening?
I think Dark Knight goes over a $200 a smidgen. Jason says just under. Either way it’s gonna be huge.
A nice weekend at the box-office, with all but 1 new film easily over-performing.
I loved Ted..it was exactly what it made itself out to be, and was pretty damn funny.
Here’s what I’ve got for this weekend:
The Amazing Spider-Man – $77M
Katy Perry: Part of Me – $11M
Savages – $13M
Have a great 4th!!
A good 4th to you as well. Last weekend was crazy, and now going into the 4th I don’t know what exactly to expect. But this could be absolutely huge coming off of the high of last weekend.
I just got back from seeing Magic Mike…the showing was moved from one of the smaller theaters, into the biggest non-IMAX theater they have…show was sold-out, and I think I was about 15 guys (and that may be over-estimating).
Trevor – it looks like we will be getting our wish, because Deadline is reporting that Ted is on pace for $50+ million. That’s insane!!
Hi guys!
So according to EW, this was the 3rd time this decade that 2 animated films topped the box office for a weekend. The first (11/16 – 11/18/2007) Beowulf and Bee Movie, the second (11/12 – 11/14/2004) The Incredibles and The Polar Express. I really need to learn how to do a better job of researching!!! Although, I honestly didn’t even think of Beowulf as being an animated movie.
This week we’ve got a lot of openings…I’ll cut right to the chase:
Ted (my pick for the highest grossing comedy of the summer) – $32M
Magic Mike – $22M
Madea’s Witness Protection – $21M
People Like Us – $5
Additionally, if my calculations are correct…and there’s a good chance they aren’t…my total for year is $446.5
That just means you’re not being ballsy enough with your predictions :) Haha, no really, you’re beating both of us, great job!
I forgot all about the Zemeckis movies, which are technically animated, but still better forgotten. I hope Ted opens to more than $30m, even though that would screw my prediction. We need to support rated R films, the PG13’s are taking a lot of the fun out of the movies.
haha, I knew you were going to say something that…I just got really lucky a couple of weeks.
Yeah, I forgot about the Zemeckis’ movies as well..and yes, they are better off being forgotten.
Speaking of having balls….I wanted to put Ted down for $40M, but couldn’t do it. I want it to open up huge for that same reason. I hate the ratings system so much, because it is followed far too closely by the public. It’s that reason that studios are always shooting for the PG-13 rating, and we get so many shit films.
I’m seeing it on Sunday, and if it’s as good as I hope it’s going to be…I’ll be taking the wife during the week.
I’m not in the demographic Jason and yourself mention in the most recent podcast, but I’m (shamefully admitting)seeing Magic Mike on Friday night (hopeful there’s a lot of talent in the seats for my visual enjoyment before the movie starts) :)
If Magic Mike scores with both the female demographic and the gay men demo it could be a fairly large hit. The good thing that Magic Mike has going for it is that it appears to have a story and not just Chippendales. Of course the story might be really bad, and if it is then the movie will tank Showgirls style. Fortunately for Magic Mike though it was made for so little (estimates range from $5 to $20 mil) it doesn’t have to open big to recoup, unlike Showgirls which had a $45m budget.
Hey guys! What a shitty weekend at the box office, although in my opinion it is much deserved.
I’m expecting much better things this weekend.
Brave – $66m
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – $23m
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World – $8m
When was the last time,if ever, we’ve had animated films holding the top 2 spots at the box office? If it has ever happened, there’s a Box Office Delorean for you to use.
That’s a good point, we’ll have to look to see if that’s happened before, but with all the animated films that have come out in the past decade there must have been at least one other weekend when two ruled the box office.
I originally had Seeking a Friend at $8m too, but I just can’t stop myself from going high.
Without doing a thorough job of researching, I glanced through about 25 years of weekends and didn’t come across any weekends in which it has happened. It seemed that there weren’t many months in which more than 1 animated film was available to audiences, back in the day.
I’ve got very little expectation for Seeking a Friend. I think Abraham Lincoln is the tough one to gauge interest on; I’m hoping to see it on Saturday after taking the kids to see Brave.
Hi guys! Well, I was a bit (more like quite a bit) overly optimistic for Madagascar 3 and Prometheus (both of which I enjoyed). I’m a lot less optimistic for this weekend’s releases.
Rock of Ages – I don’t think there’s a massive audience for musicals, and even less for 80s Rock musicals. – $28M
That’s My Boy – I don’t expect to see a breakout comedy this summer, aside from Ted. – $22M
Not too far off from our predictions, as always it would be awesome if the weekend over performs, but at some point all these b cinemascore flicks have to start hurting the box office.
Trevor, in recent podcasts I think you and Jason have touched on the reason while so many of the “B” films have performed decently; people want to go to the movies.
There were a few weeks early in the summer, in which films expected to be hits under-performed (Battleship, Dark Shadows, The Dictator, etc.), but then you look at the numbers for The Avengers and people are seeing this over and over again. Yes, it’s a really good movie (and I’m like you, if I had it on disc I’d have watched it at least 4 times by now), but I really think people want to experience the movies.
I think we can agree that there are some movies that are going to succeed based on name recognition (Brave, Amazing Spider-Man, Dark Knight, Ice Age). It’s films like Step Up Revolution and Madea’s Witness Protection to name a couple that just need to go away. I wish studios would stop making movies (FOUND FOOTAGE FILMS!!!!), just to make movies and get them into theaters in the hopes of making a few million and at the same time pulling the wool over the eyes of movie goers.
I second stopping found footage films. I’ve only really enjoyed one, Cloverfield. Just watched Chronicle the other day and I was so bored. They go through the same exact moments in all of them, especially the beginning of those type of flicks when they have to justify why the person is filming, it’s always the same.
I didn’t mind Chronicle so much, but that may have been because I watched it right before or right after The Devil Inside (which was utter dog shit). I definitely liked Cloverfield a lot more than any of the other found footage films I can remember watching. To be fair, I did like Open Water..but I’m not entirely sure that would fall under “found footage”.
BTW, I love the new layout of the site. I just have a couple of questions/comments. Is there no longer a sign in option? Also, even though I check the subscribe box for comments, I never seem to get them in my email.
Thanks for noticing the changes (although it would be hard not to with how much the site look differs)! No more signing in, we got rid of the community features for now as they weren’t really being utilized well and slowed down the site. I’ll test the subscribe feature out and see if it’s broken. I see you are signing up for them in the backend so it should be emailing you, perhaps they found their way into your spam/junk folder?
Trevor, I’ve always liked the layout of your site, but I think this looks fantastic.
I checked by spam/junk folder and they weren’t in there. I haven’t been getting the emails from awhile now, but just never thought to tell you about it.
Jason, did you ever get around to seeing Piranha 3DD?
Joe I never did see Piranha 3DD, I have been awash in a sea of mediocre summer movies. I may just have to hang in and order the thing.
At some point, doesn’t a summer film have to outperform what it’s being forecast for on an opening weekend? I mean, aside from The Avengers we’ve seen audiences staying clear of most of what’s being shown. Although I think next week we see 2 really good performers in Prometheus and Madagascar 3, I think this weekend we’ll see Snow White and The Huntsman perform really well (or at least I’m hopeful that it will).
Snow White and The Huntsman – $52m
On a side note, I’m ecstatic to be seeing Piranha 3DD on Friday morning!!!! WHOOO HOOO
I’ll be seeing Snow White and The Huntsman at midnight on Thursday (thank god for vacation days, and kids being in school!)
Snow White and The Huntsman was a packed house.
Piranha 3DD was EMPTY!!! When I got there, one of the local “critics” was passed out sleeping. I can only imagine if he had any kind of expectations for the film that he’d wished he stayed asleep. I on the other hand got exactly what I expected (and hoped for)…a lot of cheese and double Ds! :)
Ya good call at $52m, I think Madagascar and Prometheus also have good shots at doing well.
Im debating ordering Piranha 3DD for 7 buck on demand. Hey Joe, worth the home rental?
Trevor, I saw Madagascar 3 on Saturday for a screening and they had to turn over 100 people away..I think it’s going to perform really, REALLY well this weekend.
Jason, as long as you don’t expect a whole lot of anything more than campy, cheesy, slutty fun..then absolutely. I only saw it in theaters, because it was cheaper than renting it ($13 for 2 Hollywood Movie Money tickets – 1 for Snow White, 1 for Piranha 3D).
So for this weekend, I had thought about 65 originally…but after seeing how many people turned out for the screening..I’m going to go with $73M for Madagascar 3.
Prometheus seems to be running hot and cold overseas, but I just think far too many people have been clamoring to see it here in the states. $65M sounds about right to me.
Boy, what a $hitty weekend this past one was at the box office! ugh!!
As for the coming weekend, I don’t recall a major clamoring for a new Men in Black film; although the effects look rather impressive, and I love Josh Brolin’s impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones. Chernobyl Diaries could go either way, and I’m leaning towards the other way.
Men in Black III – $85m (although my gut tells me closer to $72m)
Chernobyl Diaries – $15m
$15m for Chernobyl Diaries would be good, $85m feels good for MIB3 for me, of course I always feel good and predict high, which is why I put Chernobyl at $18.
Honestly Trevor, I’m hoping that Chernobyl Diaries tanks so we can start seeing the end of the found footage horror films. It wasn’t so bad when it was every once in awhile, but it’s become increasingly ludicrous with the number of horror movies being filmed in this fashion.
Men In Black is so tough to call. I think $95m is a bit over shooting, and I’m not sure $85 is an overestimation itself…but I think it’s much more realistic number when factoring in the 4000+ screens, 3D and IMAX.
You got your wish! Chernobyl Diaries is pretty much dead. Men in Black was a little soft as well though. Craptastic weekend.
I’ve never been happier to be wrong…and after watching The Devil Inside over the weekend I’m even MORE in favor of ending the found footage genre. I did watch Chronicle and thought that was fairly decent, but it wasn’t a horror film so there in lies the difference.
This is a tough weekend…The Avengers is just continuing to perform so damn well that it’s impossible for it not to affect the rest of the box office.
Battleship – $44m
The Dictator – $18m
What to Expect – $27m
Battleship midnights were less than $500k, which puts it at $30M or less for the weekend, unless it rallies. Avengers will definitely be number one again this weekend though.
Wow, what a terrible weekend at the box office! I’m not entirely surprised by Battleship, although I think the movie is an entertaining popcorn film, just don’t expect much in the form of decent acting or things that make any sense whatsoever….oh, and Brooklyn Decker is just so nice to look at! Anyway, to get back on track, I’m really surprised at how poorly What to Expect did. My wife and I saw it this afternoon, and although I didn’t think it was all that good, I expected to be a lot worse than what it was.
In regards to Battleship, as Leonard Maltin said “Saying something wasn’t as bad as I feared isn’t the same thing as saying it was good, is it?”