Box Office Predictions – Weekend of Aug 19

Welcome back to my weekly box office predictions column, Dog Days of August edition. This weekend we have four wide releases, which all could have been June or July movies had things gone better for them at some stage of their respective productions. With Conan the Barbarian, Spy Kids 4, and One Day, one presumes the studios’ August dump-jobs are a result of poor quality (in fact, I know this is true in the case of the latter–review coming later today). Fright Night is a bit more of a stumper — it has very good reviews (77% on Rotten Tomatoes), especially for a horror remake. Plus, you wonder what Disney was thinking putting it up against Conan, which seems to appeal to the exact same young-male audience (17+, of course, due to the R ratings). I guess that, for whatever reason, they just wanted it out of their prestigious vault…

The other interesting story of the weekend is that three of the four releases (all but One Day) are being released in 3-D. Only one (Fright Night) was natively shot that way, but the other two are making even stronger pitches for the extra dimension in their respective promotional campaigns. This is when you know the format has reached market saturation: three new releases, plus two holdovers from last weekend (Final Destination 5 and Glee 3D), and there are enough screens to sustain them all. And to think, audiences don’t even really like the gimmick anymore… Don’t exhibitors know just what we want from them? On that miffed note, let’s crunch numbers…

Conan the Barbarian should lead the pack of new releases, but it’s tough to predict because ancient action flicks tend to either open spectacularly (300, 2000 B.C.) or bomb miserably (The Eagle, Pathfinder), and this one looks like it will be decidedly in-between. But I have a preposterous prediction-idea that just might work… How about we first take the original’s opening weekend and adjust it for inflation? That would be $22.5 million and it’s a safe meter of how many people are interested in rushing out for this type of flick (has much really changed in the way of barbarian-interest in 30 years?). Give it a 15% bump for 3-D, then take away 25% for competition from Fright Night and I think we have our golden number: $19.4 million.

While Conan seems to have the most buzz going into the weekend, I’m betting Fright Night also does respectably because horror is one of the more reliable performers in August, alongside lowbrow comedy and modern action. Movies like The Last Exorcism, Rob Zombie’s Halloween (and its sequel), The Final Destination, Red Eye, and The Skeleton Key all opened to mid-teens or better. Maybe that’s why Disney decided on August after all. But as I said before, it has to deal with competition from Conan and has a teenager-excluding R-rating, so don’t expect it to get near the $20m threshold, as The Last Exorcism did last summer. Instead, I’ll predict Fright Night comes in at $14.1 million, less than the $16m-ish of the PG-13 duo in that group (The Skeleton Key and Red Eye), and accounting for a modest 3-D price bump.

Then there’s Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, Robert Rodriguez’ return to a once-popular franchise that reeks of a money-grab. While original stars Daryl Sabara and Alexa Vega do appear, they are not the headliners (having been replaced by two new kids, now that they’re much older). The more interesting addition is the “4-D” element, which uses a scratch-and-sniff card in addition to 3-D glasses. But listen: no way does this movie do anywhere close to the grosses of the original three films, two of which topped $100m domestically. A far more reasonable comparison is Rodriguez’ release from two Augusts ago, Shorts, which pulled $6.4m opening weekend in nearly as many theaters (3,105 vs. 3,295). Best case scenario for Spy Kids 4 is that it doubles Shorts and gets a 15% 3-D bump on top of that, which would give it an opening of $14.7m. But I’m a bit more conservative than that because The Smurfs is still doing very well with kid audiences, so I’ll deduct 10% to account for the competition and put my final prediction at $13.2 million.

Lastly, you’ve got One Day, starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. It’s a painfully, laughably bad movie and the reviews reflect that. Opening day turnout should be OK because of the stars and the popular source novel, but word-of-mouth should be abysmal. Figuring the PTA shouldn’t get much higher than that of Focus’ It’s Kind of a Funny Story–another bad film with a good cast, though nowhere as bad as One Day–it should do around $5.2 million for the weekend.

My prediction of what the full top 10 will look like:

1. The Help … $20.5m ($7,620 PTA) -21.3%
2. Conan the Barbarian … $19.4m ($6,434 PTA)
3. Rise of the Planet of the Apes … $16.1m ($4,638 PTA) -42.2%
4. Fright Night … $14.1m ($4,528 PTA)
5. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World … $13.2m ($5,511 PTA)
6. The Smurfs … $8.2m ($2,682 PTA) -40.3%
7. Final Destination 5 … $7.2m ($2,282 PTA) -60.1%
8. 30 Minutes or Less … $6.6m ($2,147 PTA) -50.5%
9. One Day … $5.2m ($3,025 PTA)
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 … $4.3m ($2,474 PTA) -40.7%