My weekend article.

(4-day grosses)
1. Transporter 2 - 18.1m
2. The 40 Year Old Virgin - 17.1m (+5%)
3. The Brothers Grimm - 10.8m (-28%)
4. Red Eye - 10.1m (-2%)
5. Constant Gardener - 8.6m
6. Four Brothers - 7.6m (-3%)
7. Wedding Crashers - 7.4m (+22%)
8. March of the Penguins - 6.1m (+30%)
9. The Cave - 4.1m (-32%)
10. The Skeleton Key - 3.6m (-20%)
Underclassmen - 3.0m
A Sound of Thunder - 1.1m

Top Ten Cume - 93.5m

Yes, summer is ending. What a disasterous summer this has been (no, I'm not talking about Katrina). On the bright side, this Labor Day weekend looks strong with a potential number one opener and either small drops or good boosts for the holdovers.

Transporter 2 will get into action in a record 3303 theaters. The original opened in 2002 with a opening weekend gross of $9.1 million, en route to $25.3 million. That may seem like a modest gross, but this was a pretty good performance considering that it virtually came out of nowhere, not to mention, it was a cheap production. It has become a cult hit on home video, which makes this the reason the sequel was made. It certainly came at a good time. Not since Stealth has there been an action movie in the marketplace. Action films have been fizzling because of lame plots (Stealth and The Island), but Transporter offers something that looks like a good old fashion fun ride. The critics seem to agree, since this movie has been getting better than expected reviews. Print counts have been pretty big (some theaters are giving it 3 screens). It could challege Jeepers Creepers 2 for a record (It gross $18.4 million in it's first 4 days). The only thing that will hurt this movie is the Labor Day history, and being a sequel of a modest grossing movie. It will probably go the JC2 route, but the per screen average should be a tad lower, thanks to Katrina. So a per screen average of just below $5500 will give this movie $18.1 million, almost doubling the original's 3 day gross.

The Constant Gardener opens in 1346 theaters over the weekend. The Wednesday gross was $0.9 million, which puts it well ahead of Vanity Fair (which was released the same time last year on a Wednesday, with $0.6 million). That movie went en route to a $6.1 million 4-day. Though the multiplier won't be as big (because of stiffer competition), it will certainly have a nice per screen average. The strong reviews will help this movie in the long run. I'll give this a multiplier of 9, which will lead to a $8.6 million weekend, or a $6400 per screen average. The six day total will be over $10 million, giving this thriller a strong start indeed.

Two other openers, Underclassmen, and A Sound of Thunder, should both open below the top ten since both studios are dumping the movie. The former opens in 1132 classrooms. The Nick Cannon should bring in the usual urban crowd, giving this a per screen average of about $2600, leading to a $3.0 million gross. The latter will suffer an even worse opening, this to lack of awareness. The reviews are just awful, and test screenings have been terrible. Competition from Transporter 2 will not help. Worse of all, it was shelf for quite some time. Though the low theater count of 816 should at least put the per screen average to just above $1,000, giving this turkey a $1.1 million opening weekend.

Among holdovers, 40 Year Old Virgin should get a boost thanks to the low drop in the sophmore session. Brothers Grimm will have a harsh decline, but the Unfinished Life sneaks should prevent this from dropping 30%+. Red Eye and Four Brothers will both get single digit declines thanks the modest decline both films have been experiencing. Wedding Crashers should get a 20%+ increases thanks to the small declines, and the fact the there are some people that need to play catch up with this movie. March of the Penguin's audience will play even a bigger game of catch up, since it is the only family movie in the top ten. Cave should have it's usual decline, as will Skeleton Key.

All in all, this will be a very strong Labor Day weekend frame. It will certainly pull comfortably ahead of the $75 million that last year's top ten movie's collected. At least this will end the summer on a bright note, and a good sign for the start of the fall season.

(What do you think).

We have very similar predictions for the weekend.

So, yes, they're good.

go transporter 2!

man, after looking at other peoples predictions, I noticed that I maked a couple of very risky ones. hope its for the best.

Finally a weekend where everyone has significantly different predictions. No one's been close on all the new releases and even the holdovers are hard to predict. You're way too high on Brothers Grimm in my opinion.