WEEKEND STUDIO ESTIMATES April 26-28

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Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, Weekend #17 of 2013 is looking like $81 million for the top 12 films, down 33% from the average the past few years for this weekend and down 16% from the same weekend last year.  Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain opened fairly quietly — not a total disaster but nothing special.  Now Paramount can move on and focus on the real reason that the movie was made: it came along with the upcoming Transformers 4 (June of 2014) in the same deal.    

Opening at 3,277 theaters Friday, Pain and Gain from Paramount grossed $7.5 million Friday and a soft $7.4 million Saturday.  The studio claims the film is on track for a $20.0 million opening weekend, although I expect it will be more like $19.5 million (below the impressive-sounding $20 million benchmark but still somewhat above the $18.8 million ShowbuzzDaily forecast).   The film is averaging a mediocre $6,100 per theater for the weekend (somewhat above the $5,333 opening weekend average for all wide-release films the last two years), while critical sentiment is mixed: 47% positive at RottenTomatoes (and an identical 47% with top critics).  Count Mitch Salem in the negative column in his ShowbuzzDaily review.  Pain and Gain is headed for $58 million total domestic.

Opening at 2,633 theaters Friday, The Big Wedding from Lionsgate grossed $2.5 million Friday and $3.1 million Saturday is still on track for a $7.5 million opening weekend (below the $9.2 million ShowbuzzDaily forecast).   The film is averaging a really bad $2,800 per theater for the weekend, while critical sentiment is mocking: only 6% positive at RottenTomatoes (and an even worse 4% with top critics).  The Big Wedding is headed for a mere $15 million total domestic.

Still above the significant $10 million weekend level, both Oblivion and 42 are headed for around $100 million total domestic.

Note: The table above summarizes an early look at the weekend.  The first column is a reminder of each film’s ShowBuzzDaily Forecast for the weekend (in brackets).  The second column, on which the films are sorted, displays the new weekend projection for each film, based on the Friday numbers (the third column).  The final column is a preliminary estimate of the ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Total number for the film’s total run in North America.  A “++” indicates the Domestic number has been upgraded; a “–” indicates a downgrade.

In case you missed them, click to see this week’s Weekend Predictions.

Total Box Office Volume

The Top 12 Films this weekend are looking like $81 million total Friday-Sunday, about the same as yesterday’s estimate ($80 million) and now down 33% from the four-year average for the comparable weekend and down 16% from the same weekend last year.  This is the worst 17th weekend of the year since April 27-29, 2007, which only mustered $62 million for the top 12 films.  No film broke $10 million that weekend: Disturbia lead the way with $9.0 million for its third weekend, followed by the miserable opening weekends of The Invisible ($7.7 million) and Next ($7.1 million).

Check back later for the International Box Office report.