Call me crazy, call me the worst box office predictor EVER. All this may be true.

My gut tells me that King Kong will open just under $45 million in the United States, and I am fully willing to be on that. I cite a completely and utter lack of proper advertising, lackluster trailers, an overblown running time, and far too much competition.

Mark my words.

Who else is crazy enough to jump on board with me? (I won't be offended if you laugh in my face, I've got absolutely nothing other than my intuition to back me up on this).

Are you talking about the 3-day weekend?

And, yeah, you're nuts. Heh.

Im almost confident it will open to less than 55 million. Dont know about 45 million yet but it seems to take them quite a long time to play the new trailers 1 month and a half before its release. Ill join for now but may leave later on if the buzz doesnt pick up

Yes, 3 Day

doubt it.

It's possible, but I doubt it. I think this film will open huge based on the awesome reaction to Kong shots of the film, Peter Jackson's name and the Lord of the Rings followers, and the general epic "must see" vibe, especially during Christmas time. Kong doesn't really have that much competition from the same genre field at all; and besides Christmas holidays usually allow for a much wider range of films as the demand is higher, and can withhold the many films that are opening around this time. The legs however, could be poor depending on how the film is received. I am certainly far less confident in the legs. However, I don't think I can agree on this opening weekend prediction.

PEACE, Mike.

I actually expect this to open to just under Fellowship numbers now ($47million), but with a larger opening wednesday, around $25million. Giving it around $83 - $85million 5 day opening. So yeah, i think its concievable that it could open less than $45million 3 day.

I dont think so but it will also not be extraordinary huge. But under 45 seems a bit low.

Yeah, I'd guess around or under $45m... We gotta remember that this is a 3-hour movie (is that with or without credits?), so there will be fewer showtimes each day than normal films.

Joy

That stopped all three Lord of the Rings films, right?

What this guy said!

impossible. 45 million friday, maybe.

Godzilla had a Wednesday opening too, and made 44M for the three day weekend. Adjusted for inflation that would certainly be over 45M. I can't see King Kong making less than Godzilla opening weekend.

I'm in. I'm glad I'm not the only one here who thinks Kong is overpredicted.

I'm not in.

Frankly, I'm leaning more towards an 80+ mil opening than a <45 mil opening.

If we care about the future of movies, we all better be hoping that Harry Potter, King Kong and Narnia open up to big numbers.

I wouldn't be surprised. The weekend before Christmas is often slower than expected. Even if it opens under $45M, I see it making up a ton of ground over the holidays with a multiplier of 5 or 6.

80 million 3 day? Not with a 3 hour runtime. 60-70 is more likely. Less showing per day will take a lot off the potential.

No way. Just because we think the trailer is poorly edited doesn't mean that people won't come away wanting to see it because of the clearly huge amount of spectacle onscreen. The film is already getting a lot of hype in outlets reserved exclusively for the biggest blockbusters of the year, and I'm assuming the reviews will be damn good as well. The whole long running time and huge budget will probably help more then hurt in my mind, as least as far as just gross and not profit. Some people were mentioning how they heard it was tied with Titanic for the biggest budgeted movie of all time, and when something is being shown to be this big of an epic with it's roots in pop culture and an appealing actor/director, it's all but guaranteed to do damn well. More then Lord of the Rings, I'm reminded of War of the Worlds. Expected to be the solid second of the season, I bet the opening will be very much in line with it and coincidentally The Two Towers (60-65 million 3 day, 100-105 million five day). As for the total, well obviously the legs will be heavily boosted by the holiday season, but it really does depend on the WOM. If word of mouth is mixed like WOTW was I bet the total will be under 250 million. However, if it's closer to Lord of the Rings, then I honestly think this has a shot at 300 million.

Wait...we do?

I was thoroughly impressed with the new trailer when I saw it in front of Jarhead.

I really liked it a lot, but go to the thread for it and comments range from "it's good footage but the trailer wastes it" to "that's the most poorly edited trailer of the year!". I was being more sarcastic then not with that bit, just pointing out how a lot of people here are REALLY nitpicking the hell out of the ad campaign for it.

Yeah, those comments are only represenative of internet complainers across the globe, not the movie going masses across North America who don't decide to see movies because of the editing of a trailer, and they don't freeze frame CGI shots to dissect them frame by frame.

Not a chance, 55m+ opening wknd

I'll tell ya: If this movie opens to anything under 50 Million on the budget it has, it would have to be deemed very disappointing for all the hoopla it's getting or lack thereof.. The trailer for me loked very cartoonish loking, didn't lok real at all and looked like it was on a sound stage with everything photoshopped in the background and that's the problem with Digital filmmaking nowadays that the SW Prequels suffered from..