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Box Office Wizard (12.10.10)

'Tis the season for Box Office Wizardry. All you have to do is 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 #31. 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

1. Tangled - $21.5M (weekend)…$96.4M (gross)
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1- $16.7M…$244.2M
3. Burlesque - $6.1M…$26.9M
4. Unstoppable - $6.1M…$68.8M 
5. Love and Other Drugs - $5.7M…$22.6M

Week #30 Wizard(s): All of Us - 3 pts
Current Box Office Wizard(s): SimonSays - 85 Pts 

Three was the number that sponsored last week's competition. It was tough to predict the bottom three, but everyone got at least one of them right. No one, however, saw Megamind falling out of the top five like it did.
 

ALL-TIME TOTALS
SimonSays - 85
Steven C - 84
TheGamerGeek - 72
Sallas - 66
Kieran - 41
Max A – 21
Olly H - 14
Dustin C - 10
Dementious - 6 
Joseph – 6
OracleofGame - 6
Dinah – 5
HSXGirl - 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


The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Directed by Michael Apted
Written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Michael Petroni, C.S. Lewis (novel)
Starring: Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley, Will Poulter
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Distributor: Fox
Release: 3,555





The Tourist
Directed Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Written by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Christopher McQuarrie and Julian Fellows, Jérôme Salle (film “Anthony Zimmer”)
Starring: Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Paul Bettany
Genre: Thriller/Romance
Distributor: Sony/Columbia
Release: 2,756



 


 My Top Five Predictions 

Coming off a lull last week, this weekend favors the new releases heavily. The "Narnia" series has a good following and it should probably be enough to put The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in first place. "Caspian" made $55 million, but I have a feeling we're looking at something more along the lines of $40 million given all that's happened in the series. I have little confidence in thinking it could pick up right where it left off, but it's not impossible.

Although The Tourist won't be releasing in all that many theaters, I think $20 million is possible given the star power. It should beat out Tangled, but it might be closer than you think. I think Disney's hot animated film should be good for $14 million-ish. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 shouldn't be far behind with $9-10 million.

But we've still got one holdover that will make the top five from the crop of movies projected to finish in the $3-4 million range. Burlesque was the film to top the group last week, but I'm going with Unstoppable, a film that has proven just that in jumping everything close to it

1. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
2. The Tourist
3. Tangled
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 1
5. Unstoppable

 

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