OK, make your 2002 box office predictions! Spiderman, AOTC, HPATCOS, TTT... (1 Viewer)

[Matt Pelham]

Well, 2002 is almost over, here's how I did with my predictions:
AOTC: Original Prediction 350/Actual 310
Definitely overpredicted this one, and I thought I was being moderately conservative with that one!
HP:COS: Original Prediction 285 (Revised Nov. 8 prediction 245 )
Hmmm...It will probably end up somewhere between my two predictions, probably closer to my revised one. Most people overpredicted this one at around $270 M.
LOTR:TTT Original Prediction 270 (Revised Nov. 8 prediction 325
Will definitely end up closer to my revised prediction, I think this could be my most accurate one (altough I'd love for it to make lots more and prove me wrong!)
Spider-Man Original Prediction 250+
Yikes, as with everyone else I really underestimated Spidey. Must not make same mistake with the Hulk!
MIB2 Original Prediction 230 Actual 190
Whoops, I really thought everyone was underpredicting this one, but I didn't forsee the "suck factor"
I guess I did OK, but not as good as I had hoped. However, as bad as my predictions were I feel I sort of redeemed myself with this quote from April 9th.

 

[Matt Stone]

Here are my original predictions...

SW:AOTC - $375 Million. Can't Wait for it, and think it's going to be better than TPM. I don't think it has a chance at 400 mil, but this might require an upward adjustment of ~50 mil depending on word of mouth. (This reflects an upward adjustment of $50 Million)
LOTR:TTT - $305 Million. Seems to have the potential to do as good as FotR based upon word of mouth. Many of the people that trashed FotR because they didn't know about sequels might give this one a shot.
HP:COS - $250 Million. Will do well, but won't bring on the same insane numbers that TSS did.
Spidey - $250 Million. ALA X-Men, will open huge and then drop off. Especially with AOTC being released shortly after. (This reflects an upward adjustment of $55 Million)

I was pretty accurate with my original prediction of 325 for AOTC, but that quickly turned sour when I upward adjusted 50 mill.
As far as TTT goes, I expect it now to make closer to 330. I'll be close, but I dropped the ball to an extent.
I appear to be pretty good on Harry Potter.
And most of us, I completely missed the boat on Spiderman. If only I hadn't make my laserdisc eating decree

 

[Malcolm R]

So who was the first to call a bigger BO for TTT than FOTR?

Answer: Quint van der Vaart (Post #3)
I believe Steve Christou made the highest prediction for TTT at $350M. Perhaps he'll have the last laugh.

 

[David Echo]

In my SEPT 2ND POST I also predicted a 350 Million dollar domestic gross.

350 million is my "official" domestic prediction and I'm sticking to it.

I hate to beat a dead horse and all that but I'm so wrong about this most of the time, that if I may actually be right for a change I want people to know about it!
Dave

 

[Iain Jackson]

Back on April 10th, I made the following predictions:
Attack of the Clones: $385 million - I said that The Phantom Menace would hurt it, but I didn't realise that it would have as big an impact. At least I wasn't alone.
The Two Towers: $290 million - I guess I was a bit off here, but at least I wasn't miles away.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: $265 million - This could well turn out to be my most accurate prediction.
Spider-Man: $240 million - And I thought I was sticking my neck out then! Oh well...
Men in Black II: $170 million - I was actually surprised when I went back and saw how low my prediction had been. Just before it's release I was expecting it to do much higher, but luckily I didn't change my prediction. As it stands it wasn't too bad.
Red Dragon: $125 million - Oops. Damn Hannibal for ruining the Box office for a far superior film...
Minority Report: $110 million - Unlike many I never saw this being a runaway success, and as it turned out I was proved generally to be correct.
Scooby-Doo: $100 million - I think I was the first to actually predict anywhere near a high number for this, but obviously it still wasn't high enough.
The Scorpion King: $70 million - I didn't really think about this one (if I had I would probably have put it nearer $100m, which would have been more accurate), but it wasn't a bad prediction.
For next year I'll try and make properly-considered predictions for as many big films as I can, and see if my accuarcy can improve.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Visual Effects Award this year

Dennis, if New Line can't get Andy Serkis the supporting nom for Gollum then I think it's a very strong possibility that the "make-up" award to acknowledge the powerful presence of Gollum would be the Visual Effects award.

Gollum is easily the #1 thing mentioned from TTT as an outstanding achievement by someone. Trying to decide who should get credit for it seems to be the only problem the Academy faces.

I suspect the Visual FX goes to TTT and Serkis gets nothing (which I don't think is right).

 

[Seth Paxton]

While we are reflecting, I threw this out regarding Spidey

BTW, the last film to open just weeks before a Star Wars film...The Mummy. Any problems Spiderman may have, I doubt it's release date will be the cause.

So Star Wars is 2 for 2 in making the event film from 2 weeks earlier into a money maker exceding all expectations (certainly no one saw The Mummy making as much as it did either).

 

[Seth Paxton]

AOTC - 380 Missed by some 80m
Spidey - 250. My first revision on this

I think it could still run dry toward $300m.

Err, what I meant was...
Still missed by 150m after revising.
TTT - 285 My revision began around the the start of May and the argument for it can be seen here. At this point I was looking at 335m (20 more than FOTR).
I feel pretty good with that revision and it looks like all my debating over the "sequels can't do better" will be justified by this film. It's legs could buckle, but unless they get some other big action flick made for families and fanboys to the theater soon I don't see that happening.
Potter 2 - 260
Looks to be close
MIB 2 - 200
Pretty close
Sum of All Fears - 200
Whoops, 80m off again.
Goldmember - 120 to 150 (revised to 200 after seeing it opening weekend)
Not bad after the last minute revision. Helps to have seen the product obviously.
Signs - (after seeing it opening FRI) This film has $200m written all over it easily, and I could see $250m out of it.
Like Goldmember, having seen the product I was able to better predict it's run.
MBFGW - (long after seeing it, Aug 11, but obviously still early in its run. It had only made $45m at the time.) "Had this been marketed like My Best Friends Wedding and if the actors had more star power to pull people to the theater, it would easily have made $200m."
Or maybe it will anyway. Good call on my part 217m and climbing.

 

[TerryRL]

Weekend Estimates

#1 "The Two Towers" $48.9 million ($200.1 million) -21%

#2 "Catch Me If You Can" $30.0 million ($48.6 million)

#3 "Two Weeks Notice" $16.1 million ($43.6 million) +12%

#4 "Maid in Manhatten" $13.0 million ($57.4 million) +21%

#5 "Gangs of New York" $11.2 million ($30.1 million) +18%

#6 "Drumline" $8.3 million ($36.8 million) +17%

#7 "The Wild Thornberrys" $7.4 million ($18.5 million) +23%

#8 "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" $6.5 million ($240.3 million) +49%

#9 "The Hot Chick" $4.8 million ($22.2 million) +5%

#10 "Die Another Day" $4.4 million ($146.7 million) +10%

TTT now boasts the fifth best second weekend mark in history behind "Spider-Man" ($71.4 million), "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" ($57.4 million), "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" ($52.1 million) and "The Phantom Menace" ($51.4 million). TTT's 12 day mark of $200.1 million ties AOTC as the second fastest film in history to pass the double-century mark, only Spidey (9 days) did it faster.

"Catch Me If You Can" had a very good opening and has so far earned close to $49 million since it's opening on Wednesday. Look for this one to become Leo's first $100 million smash since "Titanic". It'll be a record 12th $100 million performer for the film's other star, Tom Hanks. CMIYC will also be the 12th such hit for director Steven Spielberg (not counting the films he's produced).

The romantic comedies "Two Weeks Notice" and "Maid in Manhatten" both saw significant boosts in business this weekend. Both films are going to end up earning over $75 million each.

"Gangs of New York" had a nice boost of 18% this weekend and this bodes very well for the longterm prospects of the film as the awards season gets underway.

"Drumline" is proving to be a very profitable hit for Fox, while "The Wild Thornberrys" should eek out a $35 to $40 million domestic run.

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" saw a massive 49% boost in business this weekend. Thanks to that large boost, COS is now guarenteed to pass the $250 million mark. Worldwide the film became only the 17th movie in history to earn over $600 million.

"The Hot Chick" will probably top out with about $37 million, while "Die Another Day" is poised to become the first Bond adventure to crack the $150 million mark. DAD is $3.3 million away from passing that mark.

 

[Eric Franklin]

Awesome numbers for TTT and CMIYC. It's great to see these two co-existing so well. Looks like TTT made more in its 2nd weekend than FOTR made in its first.

Also, HP2 looks to do around 265-275.

 

[Matt Stone]

Only a 21% drop is pretty impressive. How much did FOTR drop off in it's second?

 

[Brian Lawrence]

This was my post on May 1st, :frowning:

Spider-Man $185m
Star Wars $325m
Two Towers $225m
Harry Potter $200m (Potter-mania is dying down)

Oh well, I was kind of close on Star Wars, but I messed up on Spidey, bigtime. :b

 

[DavidDeane]

Some of you might have given TTT higher box office numbers, (ignoring the "sequel" rule), if you had kept in mind the fact that TTT is not a sequel; it is the second part in a three part movie. As such it rather compels viewers to come back who might otherwise be wary of the "yet another sequel" syndrome. Also the FOTR DVD's spiked interest over the summer and fall, further priming the pump for the TTT release. I expect these same factors to make the ROTK box office truly massive.

 

[PatrickL]

"Gangs of New York" had a nice boost of 18% this weekend and this bodes very well for the longterm prospects of the film as the awards season gets underway

I'm not convinced of that, since it added about 30% more screens to get that 18% increase in dollars.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

Here were my predictions back on April 10th:

SPIDER-MAN-250 Million

AOTC-375 Million

MINORITY REPORT-150 Million

MIB2-175 Million

AUSTIN POWERS 3-160 Million

SCOOBY DOO-100 Million

HPATCOS-310 Million

TTT-250 Million

Looks like I was way off on AOTC and Spidey,but I didn't too bad on the others. I'm probably off on TTT as well; it will probably net 300 million at least.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

Seth- I agree with you that Serkis should get the award...it is his performance that MAKES the CGI Gollum work...without his performance, the CGI work is by no means revolutionary, especially since so much of the animation was done with motion capture. Everyone's positive reactions to Gollum prove that the character does work. Technically, however, I don't think he represents some major breakthough in CGI. I believe that most can't separate the great performance from a subjective look at the CGI itself, which ranges from excellent (facial animation) to rather poor (interactions with live action elements).

I don't think giving WETA a visual effects oscar (check my comments on the visual effects of TTT in the discussion thread) would help, but that's the sort of short sighted decision that the Academy is famous for! Serkis really does deserve the Supporting Actor Oscar for Gollum, and I have my fingers crossed that he will get it.

TTT's continued reign of the box office will obviously help its chances of getting Academy Award nods...48.9 millon second weekend? That's pretty damn impressive by any standard!

-Dennis

 

[MikeRS]

Keep this in mind folks:
from Brandon Gray at boxofficemojo:
I suspect New Line is overestimating. 'Two Towers' would have to increase today to match the $48.9 million figure -- while possible, it's unlikely considering that 'Fellowship' dropped 13% on the same Sunday last year and the other studios have their own movies dropping on Sunday this weekend. Based on the partial grosses, I don't see how the dailies could turn out much higher than what's listed on the site. Rival studios have its weekend pegged as low as 44.6.
Based on how Hollywood usually works, New Line might be overestimating to get the $200 million figure circulating through the general media -- which tends not to report actual numbers leaving whatever inflated numbers the studios fed them out there unrevised.

 

[Tino]

New Line overestimate?
Never
BTW, saw TTT today for the second time (loved it, but not as much as FOTR) with a sellout crowd that applauded at the end, so who knows?

 

[Chris]

Part of what may be figuring into this that is hard to calculate is that this is the last weekend that people could use their "Free" tickets (as included with the DVDBox sets) if NewLine adjusts to figure those in as used, then all bets are off.

 

[BobV]

I believe that most can't separate the great performance from a subjective look at the [Gollum] CGI itself, which ranges from excellent (facial animation) to rather poor (interactions with live action elements).

Can't disagree enough. I pride myself on having the 'eye' that catches those 'elements' that the interaction of CGI and live action creates, and I kept special eye on this in TTT and I declare (to myself, no other need agree ) that Gollum is by far the most seemlessly live-action-integrated CGI character my eyes have ever had the delightful pleasure to view. When Frodo and Sam are tossling with him it is truly incredible how perfect it's integration is. My vote for the Oscar, (as I continue my elf delusional grandeur) would most definitely go to TTT with AOTC (which I did enjoy) nowhere even in sight.