If theaters give this movie a chance, I think Surviving Christmas can have some awesome legs, possibly one of the best legs ever for a movie with a below $2000 PTA opening. I think it has a very strong chance at $20 million.

Despite its horrible critical reviews, this is actually a very funny film. Remember how Without a Paddle had great legs despite being critically panned? And Christmas movies always have great legs. Bad Santa (4.9x), Elf (5.6x), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (4.7x) all had crazy legs. Some older Christmas movies had even more phenomenal legs.

Surviving Christmas's opening was tremendously deflated by its extremely early release date, so just by that fact alone it should hold up better and better as the holiday approaches.

If we look just at Surviving Christmas's short performance so far, it suggest better legs than all other movies released recently except Shark Tale:

On Sunday, it had the second-lowest Sat-Sunday drop in the top ten, behind only the kid-targetting Shark Tale.

Comparing Friday-Saturday increases for openers in last 5 weeks films:
Shark Tale: 63.2% (kids movie)
Taxi: 42.3% (Friday was deflated by Wed opening)
Surviving Christmas: 35.9%
Shall We Dance: 33.8%
First Daughter: 29.6%
Ladder 49: 25.4%
Raise Your Voice: 24.5%
Woman, Thou Art Losed: 24.1%
Friday Night Lights: 22.3%
The Forgotten: 13.2%
Shaun of the Dead: 11.1%
The Grudge: 7%
Team America: 3.1%

Don't write this movie off yet.

I think it has a chance at making 20 million, especially as christmas draws near. I really dont understand why the studio released this so early....

I think WOM is most likely awful. In any case, with the Incredibles and the other films of November arriving, it will lose theaters very quickly beginning in its third week. It won't have a chance at 15m, much less 20m.

I'd certainly like it's performance to improve, as I'm seemingly one of the few people left in the world that actually thinks Affleck's an okay bloke/actor. But I get the feeling large sums of theatres are going to be dropped from this film faster than you can say "Hey Affleck, you were the bomb in phantoms yo!"

It won't and you know why? You have mentioned it in your own post.

The theatres won't give it a chance, they will kick it out after two weeks. I see a theatre loss in its third weekend of around 1000 theatres at least.

Why on Earth will anyone think this will hit 20 million after a 4.4 million weekend. First of all, it was crucified by critics, and WOM is very poor. I think it might struggle to get to 10 million.

its posible!!!
but its a very slim chance!!