It’s Box Office Wizard! Predict which five movies will place in the top five of this weekend's U.S. domestic box office. 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 #24. 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 #23 Wizard(s): SimonSays, GamerGeek, Sallas - 5 pts
Current Box Office Wizard: TheGamerGeek - 64 Pts
We have a new current Wizard! I need to stop pointing out the places where I feel my estimates are weakest, such as saying Secretariat might have enough to jump ahead of Life As We Know It, which three of you jumped on, keeping the rest of my top five and switching that up. Thus, I relinquish the wizarding throne for the time being.
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
Paranormal Activity 2
Hereafter
My Top Five Predictions
I knew Jackass 3-D would win the box office last week, but a fall weekend opening record with $50 million? Wow. Now the real test becomes how well it can hold up. I'm imagining that most of the people who saw the film went because they like the series and that the high weekend total won't necessarily get more people who might not otherwise go into the theaters to see it. So I'm going to take Paranormal Activity 2 just over Jackass 3-D.
When it comes to October horror movie box office phenomena, the Saw franchise is the barometer and the first several sequels to the orginal made $30-plus million. I anticipate that much for "Activity." Taking a near-50 percent hit, I've got "Jackass" penciled in for $25-28 million.
Good films this fall have faired well in repeat weeks, so safe to put RED in the $12-15 million category. The rest of the films that should finish in or near the top five have also been positively reviewed, which will make it tough for our other newcomer. I'm going to say The Social Network will finish fourth with $7 million and that Hereafter will slide in just below with $6-7 million. It's definitely a soft estimate for an Eastwood film, but buzz and awareness was stronger for Invictus last year and that made $8 million. Secretariat should be edged by a nose finishing low side of $6 million.
