Weekend Forecast for August 2-4, 2013
By Reagen Sulewski
August 2, 2013
Technically not an August film, as it opened on Wednesday, The Smurfs 2 has already had part of its verdict written – and I'm mostly proud of you people. Its first day was just slightly over $5 million, throwing under the first day of the recent Turbo. Considering the original's $35 million opening and decent final total of $140 million, it's a surprisingly soft bow. Perhaps people actually got wise to just how bad the first film was, and are punishing the filmmakers for a lazy and unnecessary sequel. In any case, we seem to be on pace to avoiding Smurfs 3 – unless those horrible foreign numbers are high again – so you people better not let me down. A three day weekend of $22 million should suffice.
The Wolverine limped home to about $53 million for a weekend win in its debut, down over a third from the last Wolverine film – so there's our franchise damage calibrated right there. Word-of-mouth seems fairly friendly to it as being faithful to the spirit of the comics, so it has at least that going for it. Still, as a comic movie, it'll have to overcome a lot in order to be considered “leggy”. That means about $27 million this weekend at best. Realistically, we're shooting for $150 million domestic.
For other returning films – The Conjuring will pass $100 million by Saturday at the latest, and with that being almost pure profit, Warner Bros. is frantically shoving money at James Wan to get him to make a sequel. I'd expect around $12 million here.
Despicable Me 2 continues to be one of the few bright spots of the summer, as it is on the verge of becoming the fifth highest grossing animated film of all time, with a very outside chance of hitting fourth place by the end of its run. Kids are simply crazy for minions, and it's been a rare case of a film dominating a market segment. Give it $11 million this weekend.
That's possibly one of the reasons for the underperformance of Turbo (though its just plain weirdness might also be a factor). With a $135 million budget, its sub $100 million performance is just a disaster for Dreamworks. It should find about $8 million this weekend.
Further down the list we have Grown Ups 2 with about $7 million, Red 2 with $6 million, and The Heat with about $5 million – the latter another bright spot of a summer when many sure things have missed and missed badly – just look at Pacific Rim and R.I.P.D. below the $5 million mark this weekend (though at different scales of fiascos there). It's coming close to the last chance for summer films to salvage anything.
Forecast: Weekend of August 2-4, 2013
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of Sites |
Changes in Sites from Last |
Estimated Gross ($) |
1
|
2 Guns
|
3,025
|
New
|
32.1
|
2
|
The Wolverine
|
3,924
|
0
|
26.7
|
3
|
The Smurfs 2
|
3,866
|
New
|
22.4
|
4
|
The Conjuring
|
3,115
|
+93
|
12.6
|
5
|
Despicable Me 2
|
3,204
|
-272
|
11.3
|
6
|
Turbo
|
2,985
|
-824
|
8.4
|
7
|
Grown Ups 2
|
3,075
|
-183
|
7.2
|
8
|
Red 2
|
2,755
|
-261
|
6.3
|
9
|
The Heat
|
2,074
|
-310
|
5.1
|
10
|
Pacific Rim
|
1,803
|
-799
|
4.1
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|