Weekend Forecast for April 27-29, 2007
By Reagen Sulewski
April 27, 2007
Now we get into the true dregs on the slate. Kickin' It Old Skool is Jamie Kennedy's latest assault on comedy, with an '80s-themed take on the fish-out-of-water genre. His character is a champion breakdancer in the '80s until a stunt goes horribly wrong and he lands in a coma for 20 years. When he (unfortunately) wakes up, the world has changed (although not too much) and the girl of his dreams is engaged to be married to his nemesis (Michael Rosenbaum, a.k.a. Lex Luthor). His only way to win her back? Winning the $100,000 breakdancing contest with members of his old dancing posse, who have grown up, but not quite moved on in their lives. Much mockery of '80s fashions and styles ensues.
This movie is definitely aiming at The Wedding Singer's milieu, though it's more like The Wedding Singer after it's been beaten to the point of concussion. I don't expect this to share any of the heart or even manic lunacy that Adam Sandler's take on the decade of neon and parachute pants had. Kennedy's last real film of note, Son of the Mask, was an unmitigated disaster, and his last attempt to cover this specific cultural territory, Malibu's Most Wanted, didn't fare much better. I look for a pretty meager weekend of around $7 million for Kickin' It Old School.
The sole action entry of the weekend is The Condemned, starring Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones. In a cross-pollination of The Running Man and Battle Royale, ten condemned convicts are sent to a remote island, where they are to be filmed for a reality show with only one goal: kill everyone else (Sudden inspiration: cross this movie over with Jamie Kennedy's).
This one's all about the ‘splosions, and seeing how many people will support yet another pro wrestler's action film career. Six or seven years ago, Steve Austin as an action star might have made more sense, but he, and wrestling, have faded in popularity. John Cena's The Marine was a dud, as was Kane's See No Evil. This might have a slightly better opportunity than those films, but the ceiling is pretty low for wrestlers these days. Give it $7 million for the weekend.
As mentioned above, Disturbia captured the top spot at the box office for the second straight weekend, and is edging close to $50 million. And although it faced pretty weak competition, its weekend drop wasn't all that bad, falling from $22 million to $13 million. It should see between $7 and 8 million this frame.
Fracture was the best of a sore lot of new films last weekend, opening to just $11 million. The Anthony Hopkins/Ryan Gosling legal thriller played out like a low rent Silence of the Lambs, without the gore, style or intrigue. So just the little things, really. Look for a second weekend of about $6 million.
Blades of Glory slide past $100 milllion last weekend, putting another feather in the cap of Will Ferrell and unfortunately ensuring that Jon Heder will still get work. It stayed in third place by edging out Vacancy, and is showing decent holding power. It's not too long for the top 10 with summer blockbusters coming, but $125 million total isn't out of the question.
The aforementioned Vacancy will be lucky to hit just $25 million after starting out with $7.6 million in its opening weekend. Too scary for thiller-town and not scary enough for horror-town, Vacancy was a film largely without an audience. It'll drop to around $4 million this weekend.
Though it opened with the lowest screen count of last week's new films, Hot Fuzz managed a decent $6 million to top wide releases in per screen average. Its reward is an expansion by 50% in screen counts, which may be able to hold it steady in terms of absolute numbers. Word-of-mouth is excellent for this one, so it definitely has a chance. Somewhere between $5 and 6 million is where it should land for the weekend.
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Forecast: Weekend of April 27-29, 2007
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of
Sites |
Changes in Sites
from Last |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
Next
|
2,725
|
New
|
14.3
|
|
2
|
The Invisible
|
2,019
|
New
|
9.2
|
|
3
|
Disturbia
|
3,047
|
+22
|
7.9
|
|
4
|
Kickin' It Old Skool
|
1,813
|
New
|
7.4
|
|
5
|
The Condemned
|
2,310
|
New
|
7.1
|
|
6
|
Fracture
|
2,443
|
0
|
5.9
|
|
7
|
Hot Fuzz
|
1,272
|
+477
|
5.7
|
|
8
|
Meet the Robinsons
|
2,461
|
-562
|
4.4
|
|
9
|
Vacancy
|
2,551
|
0
|
3.7
|
|
10
|
Are We Done Yet?
|
2,701
|
-243
|
2.9
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
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