Box Office Predictions 8/21/2009

This is a tough weekend for the box office, one huge film opening in Inglourious Basterds that has received a good amount of buzz, and decent reviews (currently holding a 89% at RottenTomatoes). At the same time though the Weinstein Brothers haven't had much success with their recent films, and their marketing for IB has been pretty stagnant, and uncreative. I'll probably not end up checking out the film until next week, but I think the movie will do fairly well this week and hold solid numbers without a very big dropoff at any point. Besides people always love a good World War 2 movie!

The other movies opening this week include smaller films, such as the family friendly Shorts, by Robert Rodriguez, who seems to be once again trying to recreate the spark he had with Spy Kids in the family film market.... sorry Rodriguez I think you should just stick with Sin City, and gratutious action films for now. Shorts will likely generate what remains of the family film goers with school starting up, but probably not hold on long term with one big weekend and that's it. On the other hand you have the Alexis Bledel vehicle Post Grad, which will likely peak the interest of some tweeny boppers, but I can't see it producing any real head of steam and doing much damage.

Though of course Shorts, Post Grad, and GI Joe might get some boost from teens buying tickets and sneaking into matinee/off-time showings of Basterds/D9... much in the same way as happened when 300 was released, granted I expect neither to be that big. Ultimately though I think this will be another down weekend in the box office. Basterds will probably be good, but I can't imagine it inspiring massive amounts of viewers that have to run out and see it this weekend.

As well you have returning films that it is almost impossible to predict, Time Traveler received mix reviews from critics and movie goers alike, G-Force will likely flail with Shorts opening, and most other top films from last week barely made it into the top 10 as is. G.I Joe still needs to make about $100million internationally to make back it's budget+promotion, but I think it's lucky streak dies this week with Shorts, D9, and Basterds all overlapping its market.

Without further ado, here's my official weekend predictions:

1. Inglourious Basterds (Universal/Weinstein) - $29.7million
2. District 9 (Sony) - $19.5 million
3. Shorts (Warner Bros.) $10.1 million
4. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Paramount) - $9.5 million
5. The Time Traveler's Wife (New Line/WB) - $9 million
6. Julie & Julia (Sony) - $7.2 million
7. Post Grad (Fox Searchlight) - $5.4 million
8. G-Force (Disney) - $3.5million
9. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Warner Bros.) - $2.8 million
10. The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard. (Paramount Vantage) - $2.2 million


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In other news the new avatar trailer was released recently. If you haven't seen it yet you can check it out, here. Overall I find it very underwhelming, as it looks more like a video game than the jaw dropping ground breaking visual film it has been so heavily hyped to be. Only time will tell though, but I think if they want to make back their $237million they'll need to do a whole hell of a better job with their marketing than that commercial. As well they expect to be able to do an entire Avatar series of films, so there's a lot riding on how well the promotion is for this film.