*** Official "2003 Box Office Prediction and Discussion" Thread (1 Viewer)

[Alex Spindler]

About Kangaroo Jack, how is Cuba Gooding Jr. not in this movie? Based on his recent career, that's the only thing about this movie that I can't figure.
Seems terrible. Does anyone want to comment on how much it will gross? It may be gallows humor, but I can't see this hopping past $7 million.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Kangaroo Jack will probably do 10 million+ because it's a family movie opening on a holiday weekend in the US.

 

[Malcolm R]

I wouldn't be surprised to see KJ do $20-25M over 4 days.

 

[Joshua_Y]

I was at the theater tonight and saw A Guy Thing (Very funny) and there were lots of people for KJ, granted this is in 1ft. snow.

 

[Dana Fillhart]

Finally finished the macro that compiles the yearly totals after I input the weekly/yearly totals in the main sheet, so I've updated the first post with the Year Totals for 2003.
Thus far, Just Married, The Slaughter Rule, and The Son are the only films with totals; Tales Not Told and Blue Collar Comedy Tour don't have totals posted by BoxOfficeMojo, so if anybody knows their totals and/or theatre counts, feel free to post them and I'll incorporate them. The rest of the titles in the 2003 list are newly-released films for this weekend.

 

[TerryRL]

Friday Estimates

#1 "National Securtiy" $4.58 million
#2 "Just Married" $3.77 million ($25.3 million)
#3 "Kangaroo Jack" $3.69 million
#4 "Catch Me If You Can" $2.98 million ($126.7 million)
#5 "The Two Towers" $2.50 million ($290.1 million)
#6 "A Guy Thing" $2.36 million
#7 "Chicago" $1.97 million ($21.5 million)
#8 "About Schmidt" $1.49 million ($25.3 million)
#9 "The Hours" $1.29 million ($4.0 million)
#10 "Two Weeks Notice" $1.19 million ($82.1 million)

 

[Patrick Sun]

So is TTT going to go calmly into that good night? While I didn't think TTT was going to make FOTR's bank (roughly $315 million), I suppose it has a shot to get to $350 million, but competition might keep squeezing it off more and more screens for it to hit $335 million). CMIYC might have longer legs than TTT.
The take for National Security just reaffirms "there's no accounting for taste".

 

[Chris]

There is nothing at the box office for the african-american youth market. So, I predicted National Security would clean up. Too bad, it's not half the film that say "Drumline" is/was.

 

[TerryRL]

Weekend Estimates

#1 "Kangaroo Jack" $17.7 million
#2 "National Security" $15.7 million
#3 "Just Married" $12.5 million ($34.0 million)
#4 "The Two Towers" $11.4 million ($298.9 million)
#5 "Catch Me If You Can" $11.3 million ($135.0 million)
#6 "Chicago" $8.0 million ($27.7 million)
#7 "A Guy Thing" $7.1 million
#8 "About Schmidt" $5.3 million ($30.1 million)
#9 "The Hours" $4.7 million ($7.4 million)
#10 "Two Weeks Notice" $4.1 million ($85.0 million)
#10 "Gangs of New York" $4.1 million ($61.0 million)

TTT will pass the $300 million mark on Monday, it's 34th day of release. That would make it the third fastest pace to the triple-century mark in history. Only "Spider-Man" (22 days) and "The Phantom Menace" (28 days) did it faster.

 

[Adam_ME]

Wait a sec. Do those estimates include MLK day? Cuz otherwise it means these flicks all made a ton of jack on Saturday.

 

[TerryRL]

These are the 3-day estimates. The 4-day holiday estimates will be released tomorrow.

 

[Patrick Sun]

See what a funny trailer can bring you at the BO? KJ did have a such a trailer (though I can't bring myself to go see it due to all the other "more worthy" IMHO film now in release).

Okay, I'm guessing TTT will get to $350 million after a good weekend at the BO. It's got $50 million left, I would think.

Just Married had a (roughly) decent 33% dropoff (not the typical 50% for poor films).

 

[Alex Spindler]

Hmmm, I was only off by about $10 million.

 

[Malcolm R]

Once MLK Day is added, I'm comfortable with my prediction.

 

[Brian W.]

I'm skeptical about that LOTR 3-day gross. Their breakdown for Fri & Sat was $2,425,000 and $4,710,000 respectively. That would mean the Sunday gross would have to be over $4 million to reach the $11.4 weekend estimate. I think it will probably be closer to $10 million for the weekend. Nonetheless, it may well hit $300 million by the end of MLK Day, which should leave it only about 2 weeks, if that, from passing FOTR.

Okay, I'm guessing TTT will get to $350 million after a good weekend at the BO. It's got $50 million left, I would think.

I don't think it can hit $350 mil without a BP nomination. Even it maintained a constant 25% weekly depreciation for the rest of its run it would peak at about $245 million. FOTR got a 29.9% bump the weekend after the Oscar noms last year and an 11.6% bump the weekend of the awards.

BTW, Fellowship was doing better at this point in its run than Two Towers is, and that was before the bump from the Oscars.

 

[Malcolm R]

That would mean the Sunday gross would have to be over $4 million to reach the $11.4 weekend estimate.

Well, assuming a lot of people have Monday off, Sunday would act as a second Saturday.

Don't know how widespread MLK day is as a "day off" nationwide. Around here, it's just State/Federal offices, banks, and the Postal Service that are closed. Everyone else works and goes to school as usual. Though our ski resorts claim it's a big week for tourists, so go figure.

 

[Matt Stone]

Schools are off here in Indiana. As well as work...but then again, that may be because I work for a school

 

[Kevin M]

Kangaroo Jack was #1 at the box office this weekend & Just Married was #3 while films like The Hours and Gangs Of New York flounder.....what do you think the future (say twenty years hence) of films will look like at this rate of mental decay?
Oh, I know that it has always been like this, mindless teen films grossing more than intelligent adult fair, but the trend seems to be accelerating recently and I was wondering if anyone else had the dark feeling that this weekend BO held a very bad omen of the future?
I'm only slightly :wink: about this.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Well TTT should have broken the $300 million barrier today.
Did my part - saw it for the fourth time today!
What a great movie!

 

[Adam_S]

The Hours and Gangs Of New York flounder

This is the Hours' best weekend yet, and Gangs of New York only dropped 2.6% this weekend according to box office mojo (and missed the top ten by a mere 50k. GONY will become the highest grossing Scorsese film very soon (I believe Cape Fear was his highest at around 65mil) since it already has 60 million, and will almost certainly get a very nice boost from any oscar nomination it will get. As too mindless teen movies destroying Hollywood, well people have been saying that since mindless teen movies like "rebel without a cause" in the 50s or "American Grafitti" in the seventies were popular, clearly they destroyed Hollywood. I would assume that none of the top three films are that caliber, but I would have to see them to be sure, from the tone of your post I'm nearly certain you couldn't be bothered to actually see them.

Lighten up, this is not the beginning of the end, and try to remember that in twenty-thirty years their WILL be film festivals where ecstatic film geeks will happily glory in watching films like Kangaroo Jack, and loudly complain that noone knows how make good genre movies like that anymore (and the films of that day they deride will be happily watched at film festivals in another thirty years).