Weekend Forecast for July 17-19, 2015
By Reagen Sulewski
July 17, 2015
Comedy It Girl Amy Schumer gets her time in the limelight with Trainwreck, giving us the closest thing to a traditional big budget rom-com we've seen in ages (it's not very close, which tells you long it's been). World-bestriding comedy magnate Judd Apatow directs from Schumer's script about a commitment-phobe (herself) meeting what might turn out to be the actual person she could start settling down with, instead of passive-aggressively (and sometimes aggressive-aggressively) pushing away when they start to get too serious. That guy is a sports doctor (Bill Hader) she's profiling for a magazine, and conveniently leads to some all-star cameos like LeBron James (who card reads good as much as you'd expect).
It's tough to judge whether this falls into the category of being an Apatow movie or a Schumer movie, though neither really bodes well for giant box office (the notion of this being a Hader movie... well, let's just move on, shall we?). Apatow has worn out his welcome as a director somewhat, becoming synonymous with overlong indulgent comedy and hey, guess what, Trainwreck is over two hours long, why oh why. His last film, This is 40, managed only an $11 million opening, putting Apatow a long way from the days of Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Schumer's more of a wildcard, and this is effectively her first film role of any consequence. It helps that her TV show has been a virtual going-viral factory. Comedy sketch show success doesn't generally translate to film success, but Schumer may be a possibly crossover actress and her sarcastic/sincere vibe is an easy sell. The media full court press is on, at any rate, and with solid reviews, this should find a home in the date movie market, with an opening weekend of around $21 million.
The weekend likely still belongs to the Minions, they of the remarkable $115 million opening weekend. Although kids films do still tend to have longer legs, especially in the summer, this large of a weekend throws things into doubt, and we're probably looking at a drop to around $67 million this weekend. That will still put it within a banana's length of $250 million after just two weekends, and with $450 million as a realistic possibility, it would dwarf the other Despicable Me movies to date.
Jurassic World may or may not have crossed $600 million by the time you read this, but will clearly blow past it it this weekend, becoming the third film to do so domestically. It's about to speed past $1.5 billion worldwide as well, the fourth film to do so and putting it in the worldwide lead for 2015, a surprisingly competitive race between it, Furious Seven and Avengers 2. I'd give it $11 million this frame.
Inside Out got hit a bit, maybe not really, by Minions. The Pixar film fell just behind Jurassic World but still is in striking distance of $300 million by the end of this weekend. It should earn about $11 million itself and has $350 million in its sights.
With a less optimistic future, Terminator: Genisys should fall to around $7 million this frame, and appears headed for just $85 million or so domestic, a fairly dismal failure that will require international support to create that trilogy they're planning.
Found-footage horror film The Gallows should fall to about $5 million for this weekend, and earn about $25 million domestic, still a huge profit, all things considered. Magic Mike XXL had a decent second weekend but its opening weekend set the story and it's probably looking at about $75 million overall.
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Forecast: Weekend of July 17-19, 2015
|
Rank |
Film |
Number of
Sites |
Changes in Sites
from Last |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
Minions
|
4,312
|
+11
|
67.4
|
|
2
|
Ant-Man
|
3,856
|
New
|
52.9
|
|
3
|
Trainwreck
|
3,157
|
New
|
21.3
|
|
4
|
Inside Out
|
3,263
|
-381
|
10.9
|
|
5
|
Jurassic World
|
3,114
|
-327
|
10.7
|
|
6
|
Terminator: Genisys
|
2,814
|
-969
|
7.4
|
|
7
|
Magic Mike XXL
|
2,577
|
-799
|
5.7
|
|
8
|
The Gallows
|
2,720
|
0
|
5.1
|
|
9
|
Ted 2
|
1,576
|
-595
|
2.8
|
|
10
|
Self/Less
|
2,353
|
0
|
2.0
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
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