WEEKEND PREDICTIONS: Box Office is Alive After All

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>Two strong films open Friday, with Rio and Scream 4 poised to fuel the weekend to a strongly positive uptick from the same weekend last year.

After weeks of disappointing box office returns, two films are set to open this weekend, together reaching for about $80 million.  Rio should lead the weekend at around 3,800 theaters, and if it hit its estimate it will be the third-highest opening in April ever (behind only Fast and Furious and Clash of the Titans but ahead of Anger Management.)  The 73% positive score on rottentomatoes suggests long-term playability.  While Rio will play well to kids and families, Scream 4 is going after teens and young adults at about 3,300 theaters, in an example of excellent counter-programming.  The 61% positive score for Scream 4 is actually pretty solid for a horror movie.  Finally, playing on around 700 theaters, Robert Redford’s The Conspirator should open relatively quietly with a $3,000 per theater average.  See Mitch Salem’s review of The Conspirator, and keep in mind a historical drama like this should have more positive reviews than 57% if it is going to make a play to broaden out to the quality film audience

. 
 New Films                        Critics   Opening  Domestic
April 15-17                      Positive  Weekend  Ultimate*
.
Rio                    Fox  G      73%      $46.5     $160
Scream 4             Weins  R      61%      $34       $100
The Conspirator    Roadsde  PG13   57%      $ 2       $ 11

Note: Although critic reviews are not related to the size of the opening weekend, they are significantly correlated with the size of the declines in the opening weeks of a movie.

* The Domestic Ultimate is a very early ShowbuzzDaily projection of the North American gross, based on the Weekend Forecasts.

Hop again should be the #1 returning film, although the projected 50% decline from last weekend is worse than it is used to (given the heavy competition from newcomer Rio).  The other declines are generally fairly high, as suggested by the sluggish mid-week business the past few days. 

                                vs wknd 1  Weekend  Ultimate


Hop                    Uni        -50%      $11       $115
Hanna                  Foc        -47%      $6.5      $40
Arthur                  WB        -51%      $6        $32
Soul Surfer            Tri        -47%      $5.5      $33
Insidious            FilmD        -44%      $5.5      $52
Source Code            Sum        -44%      $5        $54
Your Highness          Uni        -54%      $4.5      $24
Limitless              Rel        -43%      $3        $81




Box Office Volume

For the past four years, the top 12 films in the comparable weekend have averaged $92 million total, ranking 43rd of 52 weeks.  Last year this weekend’s total was $112 million, and April 17-19, 2009 was $100 million.  This weekend is looking like $135 million: only the second up weekend versus 2010 (and the first since Feb 18-20, which was up 6% when Unknown and I Am Number Four opened).