1. You read this post. 2. You leave a comment at the bottom predicting which five movies will place in the top five of this weekend's U.S. domestic box office. 3. You wait to see if you were right on Sunday. 4. You get excited about it and do it again next week. It’s that easy. I will make my own predictions here and explain them to you each week to give you some sort of reference point. It's then your job to enter a comment with your top five.
This is Week #22. It’s never too late to start! The first week you predict is the first week you enter the Box Office Wizard competition. For every correct prediction each week, you earn a point. Points are cumulative. The game keeps going on and on forever and ever except we will reset everyone back to zero -- let's say -- once a year. Each week there will be at least two winners: a weekend wizard for the users who guessed the most correct and a box office wizard for the user with the most points to date. The goal is to be Box Office Wizard for as long as you can. I'll pick an end date for the year at some point and then whoever has the most becomes the year's box office wizard. Maybe by the team that happens, Player Affinity will be so wildly popular that we'll have some cool free stuff to give the Box Office Wizard of the Year. Regardless, it's worth giving a try. What do you have to lose?
Last Week's Top Five
Week #21 Wizard(s): Steven C, Sallas, GamerGeek - 3 pts
Current Box Office Wizard: Steven C - 60 Pts
Let Me In did everyone in this past weekend, except that most of us had it second and “Guardians” took its place, leaving our third and fourth place picks intact.
ALL-TIME TOTALS
Steven C - 60
TheGamerGeek - 58
SimonSays - 52
Sallas - 38
Olly H - 14
Kieran - 12
Dustin C - 10
Joseph – 6
OracleofGame - 6
Dinah – 5
Dementious - 5
HSXGirl - 4
Max A – 4
Harmonica - 3
Matthew D – 3
Julian – 2
Lydia – 2
Remember, only submissions in the comment section count and they must be made by 12:00 PM SATURDAY. Check our weekly recap posting late afternoon every Monday for the box office figures of the weekend. Remember, we count the WEEKEND ACTUALS, not the ESTIMATES announced on Sundays. On 4-day weekends, only the 3-day total matters.
Here are this week's new contenders followed by my predictions.
New Contenders this Weekend
Life As We Know It
Secretariat
My Soul to Take
It’s Kind of a Funny Story
My Top Five Predictions
Ok, well last week will be the last time I overestimate a horror film that isn't a proven commodity. Let Me In tanked and maybe I should've seen it coming. Regardless, this week isn't exactly a cakewalk either considering no newcomer is super hyped-up or anything.
Fittingly, I think Secretariat will win by a nose. Disney tends to do well with its sports dramas and early reviews, PG ratings and the success of The Blind Side will help. I think it edges The Social Network by as few as a million. Somewhere between $15-18 million sounds right and "Network" should hit exactly $15 million or so. Any more from that film would be an impressive feat for a second week.
In third and fourth I'm -- with reservation -- slating the other newcomers. Katherine Heigl's worst film still brought in $15 million its first weekend and while I think she will not suddenly reverse the downward trend, Life As We Know It will not be a total failure. $10-$15 million sounds fair and modest. Then there's Wes Craven, who has his following. I'm thinking maybe $8-10 million for My Soul to Take, which would just place it above the rest of the returners.
As for the fifth-place finisher, I underestimated Legend of the Guardians last week, which despite slow weekday sales, spiked over the weekend due to the nature of its demographic. I think it does well enough to hold off The Town by slimmest of margins.
