Decent hold for The Amityville Horror, by the way. Looks like it'll be getting a $8 million weekend, another drop of under 45% seems to be in store. Too bad House of Wax will demolish it next weekend. It still has a chance, however, to break $70 million overall.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had a good opening, but nothing record-breaking. I see a weekend around $23.5-24 million and decent legs, however worse than nromal family film's legs, due to the fanbase. It should still make at least $75 million.

xXx: State of the Union looks to be another Elektra/Torque (!). I see around $11.8 millon for the weekend and about $29 million overall.

how so?

I think a 20%+ Sat incline is possible for Hitchiker. It's a family movie, so it'll go along the lines of Sahara.

In Early Game I predicted more for its second weekend, than it'll make in its first

But there is a good side to all of this. At least one of 1,000,000 Hollywood franchises won't go on. There are too many franchises around anyway. Also, it's not like the first movie was a masterpiece...

Is it really family movie? Or as Libs said, just marketed as one?

Since by the next weekend xXx: State of the Union will be pretty much dead and Hitchhiker will be the only holdover with a $10+ million weekend gross, all openers have a great chance to break out. I see $10+ million openings for Crash and House of Wax and a possible $40+ million weekend for Kingdom of Heaven if given enough screens.

Early summer weekend, huh? More like a big dumpy weekend.

Serves Sony right. \:D/ They were putting out a lot of garbage movies and getting away with it.

Was Sahara a family movie? Families still saw it anways, and this one should have an even bigger effect considering this is the only big PG movie out right now.

at XXX 2!

2 Fast 2 Furious actually made sense. Fast and the Furious (as terrible as it was) started something new. Can't imagine how much street racing and car suping took off and gave exposure to the already existing 'industry'. Then the plethora of successful gaming titles that came out .. the market was ready for a second one

@Nebs: It COULD be a family movie ... surprisingly ... because I doubt the original material was ever meant to be ...

Well, Lecter, to answer your above question, those 2 sequels (Too Fast, Too Furious and Tomb Raider 2) did feature the same principle lead actors. There was a lot more to the Mask 2 comparison, and how changing a lead actor can kill interest with many people right away. To say that "the new breed of secret agent" is yesterday's soup would be an accurate assumption.

Here, I made the numbers more pretty :

*****FRIDAY'S NUMBERS*****

1. HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY - 8.1 Million
2. XXX: STATE OF THE UNION - 4.4 Million
3. INTERPRETER - 4.2 Million (33.5 Million)
4. AMITYVILLE HORROR - 2.6 Million (49.5 Million)
5. A LOT LIKE LOVE - 1.7 Million (11.2 Million)
6. SAHARA - 1.6 Million (52.8 Million)
7. FEVER PITCH - 1.1 Million (33.9 Million)
8. KUNG FU HUSTLE - 1 Million (10.5 Million)
9. GUESS WHO - .7 (64.0 Million)
10. SIN CITY - .6 (71.8 Million)


Damn, HITCHHIKER didn't underperform. That sucks. I'm surprised and disappointed. It looks so bad too!

xXx 2 did pretty damn bad. But a lot of people hated the first one and this one didn't have Vin Diesel either. They needed a hot guy to be xXx because Ice Cube is ugly and at least girls (and gay guys ) would be more likely to see this one if it had nice eye candy. They should have taken hottie Scott Speedman out of his supporting role and put him into the lead role. Yum! Cube is better in funny roles where he doesn't have to look attractive. Because with action movies people just want to see hot sweaty people, not ugly sweaty people. Nobody wants to see Ice Cube sweaty . But maybe that's just me.

AMITYVILLE had another great hold. It will be hurt some next weekend when HOUSE OF WAX comes out, but I don't think it will be extremely bad. There are going to be people that won't want to see WAX (Can you blame them? Paris Hilton - eew! I myself still want to see it but I don't blame those who don't) and AMITYVILLE has good word-of-mouth from audiences. It will obviously drop more than it has been dropping, but I doubt it will be HUGE. I don't think it will drop more than 50% at least.

A LOT LIKE LOVE held surprisingly great!

KUNG-FU HUSTLE held surprisingly bad. I thought with such excellent word-of-mouth it would only end up dropping like 30% this weekend.

Good point. Some movies are just luckier than others i guess...

\:D/ \:D/ \:D/ \:D/ \:D/ =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

Give dumb movies no chance!!!!

Cause schools out ...

I really thought this was a push from hollywood to begin summer early and from the summer previews i'm reading everywhere, seems like I wasn't the only one. This wekeend underperformed .... Kingdom of heaven if I'm not mistaken is the only real huge opener till ROTS comes out (please correct me if i'm wrong ... horror movies don't count \:D/ ) ... i refuse to believe audiences aren't going to spend any money before ROTS .... i still htink Bloom is gonna kill the movie but now .... everything is in the air for me.

People are saving for KoH.

Ah, well, now Bourne can take the James Bond throne with no obstacles :razz:

The Bourne movies should all be renamed ...

No more than Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible could. \:D/

Isn't Crash's opening EXTREMELY limited? Will $10 million even be possible?

I really don't know what's going on in the movie industry right now. In previous years we can feel excitement even for films that we weren't personally looking forward to. I just can't feel anything this year. I see more anticipation for Serenity than Charlie and Chocolate Factory. There is some for War of the Worlds... none for Madagascar...

With the exception of Star Wars, which seem to be the one every one can agree on.

I think we're going to have a very lackluster summer when it comes down to it.

Well, Mission Imporrible DID do that. I actually forgot about that one. I prefer Mission Impossible over Bourne anyway.

So yeah already two franchises ahead of Bond and I am willing to bet that Mission Impossible 3 will outdo Casino Royal :razz:

Yep, exactly...atleast books are in no way familiesque. If that is indeed the word.

If not, it is now.

Regarding 2 Fast 2 Furious and Tomb Raider 2, an important factor was summer. Although some of you have been branding this weekend as the "summer kickoff" for a while now, it most certainly was not.

It is still April, for goodness' sake. Both of those movies *actually* opened in summer.

Is 1,700+ theatres extremely limited? I think it's more than enough to make $10 million in three days.

I agree with you about lack of anticipation. Batman Begins has a lot of it too and WotW has some, but other than that....even Sin City had more...

1700+ screens

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/counts/cha ... =18&p=.htm