Weekend Forecast for April 1-3, 2011

By Reagen Sulewski

April 1, 2011

Bunnies aren't as sweet as you thought they were.

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Lastly, we have Insidious, the film which sees the creative teams behind Saw and Paranormal Activity hugging it out. James Wan directs this creepy-kid thriller about a suburban family that finds their new house may have some extra features that a home inspector just wouldn't pick up on, like a gateway to a netherworld filled with spirits that want to claim their son.

So sure, it's Poltergeist all over again, but Insidious seems to have some genuinely creepy moments, and a more stylish look than your typical slasher film. That may actually translate into less box office, as it make look too brainy and inaccessible to the core horror audience. You guys suck, by the way. Ultimately, the film it looks most like is 2009's ridiculous Orphan, which opened to $12 million. With Insidious's top line cast of Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne, I'd say we're looking to wind up in the same territory. Give Insidious a $14 million opening weekend.




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Last week's big shocker was Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2 beating out the much ballyhooed Sucker Punch for first place, by a 23-19 score. Wimpy Kid did this not so much on its own merits, but due to the failure of Sucker Punch, or rather, to our ability to see through what Zack Snyder was trying to do with his girlsploitation kitchen sink movie. Both films look like solid candidates to plummet this weekend, with Wimpy Kid's predecessor falling over 50% in its first weekend and Sucker Punch, well, sucking, at least as far as audiences are concerned. These two films should fall to around $11 and $8 million apiece this weekend.

By contrast to those two, a few of last week's films look positively Avatarian. Limitless and The Lincoln Lawyer are dueling thrillers aimed at, shock of shocks, adult filmgoers, and have both shown legs to the tune of falling just 20% each. Limitless kind of has its lunch money stolen by Source Code this weekend, but the impact should only be to take it from $12 million to around $11 million. The Lincoln Lawyer is relatively unique in this market, and also has the wild card of its Groupon campaign, which is a strange factor that may or may not run out at some point. For now, let's say it earns $8 million this weekend. Following these films we have Rango, which may serve as a palate cleanser for Hop and come in around $6 million, and Paul, which showed a decent amount of legs in its second frame, and will see around $5 million this weekend.


Forecast: Weekend of April 1-3, 2011
Rank
Film
Number of
Sites
Changes in Sites
from Last
Estimated
Gross ($)
1 Hop 3,577 New 22.6
2 Source Code 2,961 New 17.7
3 Insidious 2,408 New 13.9
4 Limitless 2,838 +33 11.3
5 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules 3,169 +2 10.8
6 The Lincoln Lawyer 2,707 0 8.4
7 Sucker Punch 3,033 0 7.9
8 Rango N/A N/A 6.0
9 Paul 2,543 -263 5.1
10 Battle: Los Angeles 2,263 -855 3.3

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