Box Office Predictions – Weekend of July 8

Last week was, well, just one of those weeks… nearly every one of my predictions was a complete and utter failure. Transformers: Dark of the Moon didn’t perform like the last two, instead increasing over the weekend period of its six-day opening. Cars 2 dropped more than any Pixar film in history, despite the added advantage of a Sunday night when kids didn’t have to go to bed early. Tom Hanks’ Larry Crowne tanked miserably despite being headlined by two big stars, who once were enough to ‘open’ any movie. (Had I only waited until after I’d seen it–a process akin to 100 minutes of torture–I maybe would have made a more rational prediction). In fact, nearly every movie performed worse than I thought it would; the week-over-week drops were much greater than they had been in years past. But the great thing about box office predictions is that they reset every week… Hopefully I can restore my honor this time around, but if I don’t, there’s always next weekend, right?

There is a fight for the #1 slot this weekend between the R-rated ensemble comedy Horrible Bosses and the PG Kevin James farce Zookeeper. Most recent tracking indicates that the former will come out on top and I tend to agree because the popularity of R-rated comedy this summer is undeniable. Just when you thought there might be some fatigue after Bridesmaids and The Hangover Part II, Bad Teacher came along and outperformed all expectations, demonstrating that there is still a fierce appetite for the genre. Horrible Bosses seems a lot more nondescript than fellow originals Bridesmaids and Bad Teacher–those films were clearly unique in that they featured a predominantly female cast and a major movie star playing dark and raunchy, respectively–but the more vanilla trailer could help lure in couples where it turns off core niche audiences. As a result, I think the best prediction comes from an average of their opening weekend grosses ($26.2m for Bridesmaids and $31.6m for Bad Teacher), giving Horrible Bosses $28.9 million in its first frame.

With Zookeeper, there is a key question to answer before forming a prediction: should I heed the warnings of industry tracking, which suggests this could open as low as the mid-teens, or should I go with star Kevin James’ track-record? James’ PG Paul Blart: Mall Cop opened to an unexpected $31.8m 2 1/2 years ago and went on to do a whopping $146.3m domestically. Grown-Ups, headlined by Adam Sandler but also prominently featuring James, was also pitched at kids despite its PG-13 rating, and did $40.5m opening weekend and $162m overall. Furthermore, Zookeeper seems like a cross between Night at the Museum and Madagascar, two movies that were hugely successful at the box office, both warranting sequels. But I’ve been burned by not sticking to the tracking intelligence recently, especially on X-Men: First Class and Larry Crowne. As a result, I am going to predict a modest $25 million, splitting the difference between my crazy-high delusions and the crazy-low industry forecasts.

My prediction of what the full top 10 will look like

1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon … $39.1m ($9,565 PTA) -60.0%
2. Horrible Bosses … $28.9m ($9,507 PTA) -
3. Zookeeper … $25.0m ($7,180 PTA)
4. Cars 2 … $14.4m ($3,609 PTA) -45.2%
5. Larry Crowne … $6.8m ($2,286 PTA) -48.1%
6. Bad Teacher … $6.6m ($2,228 PTA) -54.5%
7. Super 8 … $4.4m ($1,920 PTA) -44.5%
8. Monte Carlo … $3.7m ($1,496 PTA) -50.4%
9. Midnight in Paris … $2.7m (PTA unknown) -24.6%
10. Green Lantern … $2.6m ($1,290 PTA) -60.3%