Weekend Forecast for January 25-27, 2013

By Reagen Sulewski

January 25, 2013

Is that really what the script says? Huh.

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These past few and next few weeks seem to have a lot of big names in action lining up to release films. This week it's Jason Statham's turn with Parker, which differs from all the other films where Statham beats people up in that this time he wears disguises while he does it. He teams up with Jennifer Lopez (all but invisible in the ads) to intercept his old crew's heist after they leave him for dead, leading to car chases, gunfire, you know the drill.

As a standalone star, Statham has actually been on a steady downward trend, with only the Expendables films really counting as hits for him lately. Last year's Safe was one of his lowest grossing films since breaking out, only just throwing over Crank 2 in domestic box office. A lot of this is due to changing appetites for action – last week's Schwarzenegger film is stark evidence of that – but Statham's non-Transporter films haven't done a great job of selling themselves as something special or even that much better than a straight to DVD release. I'd look for just $7 million here this weekend.

Jessica Chastain will yield up the top spot, grudgingly, for now, after the twin successes of Zero Dark Thirty and Mama in successive weeks. The latter film is a bit more of a surprise hit, opening to $28 million, the largest weekend in this young year. As with any horror film, it's hard to believe that it has all that much to do with the stars (so many have hit with absolutely no names in them to think they bank on that), but it's also hard to completely dismiss that idea when it opens so above what you'd expect. Horror does tend to be premise-based, but were those creepy kids all that effective in the ads? I really don't think so. One thing that does seem to be certain about horror is that it's usually one and done, and while Mama may push a little back from that, I wouldn't expect more than around $13 million this weekend.




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Whatever the controversy surrounding Zero Dark Thirty is causing people to think of it, it is getting people to think of it. Last weekend, its second in wide release, saw it bring in a solid $16 million, a drop of about one-third. That's a little bit below average for an Oscar contender once it expands, but it's nothing to hit the panic button about yet. Give it $11 million this weekend.

Silver Linings Playbook, on the other hand, definitely seems to be picking up momentum, losing just 30% of its per screen average after a huge expansion last weekend. Jumping all the way into third place with nearly $11 million, the unconventional romantic comedy is closing in on $60 million total, with definite Oscar possibilities out there for it. As such, a final box office total is impossible to project at the moment, but at the minimum we can say it'll hit the $100 million mark before too long. A strong holdover to $9 million shouldn't be surprising this weekend.


Forecast: Weekend of January 25-27, 2013
Rank
Film
Number of
Sites
Changes in Sites
from Last
Estimated
Gross ($)
1 Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters 3,372 New 17.4
2 Mama 2,682 +35 12.9
3 Zero Dark Thirty 2,929 -17 10.4
4 Silver Linings Playbook 2,641 +118 9.2
5 Movie 43 2,023 New 8.4
6 Parker 2,224 New 7.5
7 Les Miserables 2,201 -378 5.4
8 Django Unchained 2,007 -509 5.1
9 Lincoln 1,909 -265 4.5
10 Gangster Squad 2,590 -513 4.5

Continued:       1       2

     


 
 

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