Episode 2 Opening Gross Predictions

Rupert, Rupert. What is this about us being trolls? We come on here and bash SpiderMan and Lord of the Rings. So? How exactly does that make anyone a troll? You are aware this is a Star Wars forum, right?

Anyway, I have and will continue to bash Lord of the Rings here, cuz it was a cinematic abortion in my eyes.

As for Spider-Man, I liked it, I liked it a lot. Quite frankly, and this is one aspect I have yet to hear anyone touch on, I got pissed that it came out so close to AOTC. Why?! It makes me mad. If it had come out earlier or later, I would have been hyped for Spidey much moreso. But with AOTC on the horizon, I was barely hyped, even sitting in the theater. Bummer. I thought Tobey was good, and Dafoe was good, liked J Jonah Jameson, MJ in wet t-shirt, I loved the web slinging, and I thought the fight scenes were quite good actually. Spider-Man was my fav superhero, so I had been waiting on the web slinging for a long time. I wasn't disappointed. Overall, I will say the film was a little ... it just felt long. Narrative wasn't always quite there. And the Goblin's costume still sucks.

Anyway, I fear there's no way in hell AOTC is going to catch up to it opening weekend, although it should do better overall.

 

I'll go crazy and say AotCs will flop for a star wars movie.

The average movie goers probaly don't know much about AotCs. For all they know it will be just like TPM.

Sure the trailers may be cool but so were TPM's.

Anyone wanna take that bet?

 

I think it will make a hundred million billion shmillian gazillian dollars.

That means it`s a good movie.

 

Lord of the Rings had a very modest opening weekend compared to TPM and Spider-Man, but it went on to make $830 million worldwide. And its DVD sales will break all previous records too.

AOTC may only make $80 million in the Friday-Sunday period, but it's going to be in for the long haul.

I have one concern though. Episode I was targeted directly at little children. One of the reasons it was so successful was that parents took their small kids. Whole families went. On opening weekend, a lot of people are going to do the same thing, because they're going to incorrectly assume that AOTC is the same kind of movie as TPM. Then when they come out, they're going to realize that AOTC was not a good movie for small children, and it will hurt word of mouth.

You're going to hear a lot of "I can't believe I took my five-year-old!"

 

That´s what PG´s for...

 

When Lucas opened TPM on a Wednesday and now opening AOTC on a Thursday, I think that shows that he does not care about opening weekend grosses. I think the fact that with both films, he did not open them as widely as he could have, shows he does not care either.

He knows that with SW fans and then the positive reviews and word of mouth, this film will be doing really well for a long time. AOTC does not have any serious competition for at least 4 weeks.

 

[image=http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/spaceghost/cod/blackwidow/img/dr.evil.jpg]
it will make 100 billion dollars

 

If you think people aren't going to take their kids to AOTC you're crazy. When I saw spiderman (which i thought was decent but not great), the theater is filled with kids under 5 and that movie was rated PG-13. Hell, when I saw blade 2, a 9:00pm show no less, the theater was still filled with young children. You don't have to worry about parents taking kids... they take them to anything these days.

 

When I saw Spider-Man, the theater was filled with young kids. Heck, the movie made some of them cry.

Kids have gone to films like Batman to Spider-Man...trust me, they will go to AOTC and they will love it like they always do.

 

A lot of parents I know regretted taking their young children to Spider-Man. Green Goblin's death was too violent for young children.

I'm sure parents will take their young kids to AOTC, but I'm not sure the movie is going to be very engaging for children under 7, and some of the violence may be too intense for young children.

For the first weekend, as I said in my last post, I agree families will all take their children to AOTC. More so than Spider-Man because of the PG rating. Some parents really do pay attention to ratings, and the PG-13 rating means that Spider-Man's audience skewed older than AOTC.

That's another reason AOTC has no chance of beating Spider-Man's opening weekend record. If you have a higher percentage of children in the audience, it lowers the per screen average ticket price. Assuming a sold out auditorium, the screening with 50% child/senior tickets will make less money than the screening with only 25-30% discount tickets.

 

Here is the competition AOTC will have following it's release:

May 24th - SPIRIT

This is the latest animated film from Dreamworks. Word on the film is that it is terrible and has no hype going in. So, no problems there. AOTC still #1 at box-office.


May 31st - THE SUM OF ALL FEARS

This is the new Jack Ryan character movie and it now stars Ben Affleck. The movie is Rated-R. If it starred Harrison Ford again, I would be more worried. No real threat. AOTC still #1 at box-office.


June 14th - SCOOBY-DOO

Word on the film is that it is terrible. Saw the full trailer before Spider-Man and it generated no laughs at all. Even from the kids. I don't think this will be a threat. AOTC still #1 at box-office.


June 21st - LILO & STICH, MINORITY REPORT

This is the weekend that AOTC falls. You have Lilo & Stich which is Disney's new animated film and the early buzz is positive. Then you have Spielberg/Cruise together in Minority Report which also has positive buzz. These two films take away kids and males from AOTC. AOTC falls to #3 at box-office.


June 26th - Austin Powers 3
July 3rd - MIB2, Arnold The Movie

 

If Sum of All Fears opens with $45 million or more, it will have a chance of knocking AOTC out of first place. Hannibal made nearly $60 million opening weekend, the highest opening for an R rated movie. With or without Harrison Ford, Tom Clancy has a huge following.

Scooby Doo is critic proof. Scooby Doo has a huge following on Cartoon Network not to mention a generation of adults who grew up watching him. Scooby Doo is a nostalgia-fest on par with the first Flinstones movie. Even if it's terrible in a "Josie and the Pussycats" kind of way, it will still do a $40 million opening weekend and edge out AOTC.

From May through June last year, five movies opened with grosses of $40 million or more. The audience is there, so chances that either Scooby Doo or Sum of All Fears, or both will beat out AOTC are pretty good.

 

SW is bigger than Harry potter.

SW is bigger than Marvel heros.

SW is bigger than .... well, just go and beat Spidey.


Until Titanic 2 comes out that is!!!!!

whoo hoo!!

 

Interesting discussion in this thread, but not really imporatnt....high opening weekend grosses are what the media & studios make a big deal out of, but it doesn't gaurantee the final dollar taken in....regardless what AOTC makes it's opening weekend, I believe it will make the typical "Star Wars" 400 million dollar amount...it'll eventually overtake SM....remember, Titanic opened with about $40 million....who knew then that it would eventually make $600 million.
I feel that AOTC will good enough to keep people coming back again and again. But, of course, if it doesn't beat or tie SM in it's opening weekend, the press will be saying it "failed" to meet expectations....what a lot of hogwash....in the end, Lucas will have the last laugh....and the last laugh is what counts.

 

First, there is no way in heaven or hell that The Sum Of All Fears will open at 40+ million. They could not even get those numbers with Harrison Ford starring in his Tom Clancy films.

The Sum Of All Fears opening weekend: 25 million

Second, with bad reviews, bad word of mouth and bad press, Scooby Doo won't do well. Not to mention, this film does not have a big name starring in it.

Scooby Doo's opening weekend: 15 million

Finally, we are not talking about a normal film with AOTC. TPM averaged a 15% - 20% drop rate AFTER the second weekend and that film was not reviewed as well with critics and fans as AOTC is.

If AOTC follows TPM's drops at the box-office, AOTC will be the #1 movie in America for it's first 5 weeks.

 

AotC will not beat Spiderman's opening gross.

AotC will easily beat Spiderman's total gross.
AotC will beat TPM's total gross.
AotC will beat ET's total gross.
AotC will beat Star Wars' total gross.

Anyone think LFL should have rereleased TPM in March for a month or so? It certainly could have done $3.8M in business, which would've put it ahead of ET.

I think after the dust settles, we'll have...
1. Titanic
2. AotC
3. Star Wars (A New Hope)
4. E.T.
5. TPM

I'll take a guess and put AotC finishing somewhere around $500M gross domestic U.S.

 

$45 million opening for Sum of All Fears
$50 million for Scooby, if only so that millions of Americans can go make fun of Freddie Prinze Jr.

But AOTC is still going to be the highest grossing film of the summer. My predictions:

AOTC: $350 million U.S., $775 million worldwide*
Spiderman: $290 million U.S., $625 million worldwide
MiB2: $210 million U.S., $460 million worldwide
Minority Report: $230 million U.S., $500 million worldwide
Signs: $165 million U.S., $370 million worldwide

* by "worldwide" I mean U.S. + foreign gross

 

Spider-Man's Monday numbers just came in:

Monday = 11.04 Million

Total thru Monday: 125.88 Million


11.04 Million for a Monday that people are in school and work is a lot of money.

 

But seriously SCOOBY DOO? What dim witted executive gave the green light to this terrible movie? The old TV show was downright awful to watch, and one of the worst shows considered a "CLASSIC". The CG scooby looks terrible. The sad part is that it will actually make back it's money! Has society gone nuts?

 

Yeah, what they really need is a good live-action movie based on the Super Globetrotters cartoon.
[image=http://www.yesterdayland.com/images/popopedia/shows/saturday/sa1219.jpg]

I think they've been holding off doing just such a movie because the special effects weren't available to do such a classic show justice.

We'll have to see how Zam's shapeshifting powers come out on the big screen to see how well a man morphing into a basketball could be pulled off, though.

You've got to give the Globetrotters credit; even after a hard day of bringing super criminals to justice, they always had enough energy left for a zany game of hoops at the end of each episode.

 

I guess I should revise my Spider-Man prediction. Even a 50% weekly drop gives it a total of $310 million U.S. A 40% dropoff gives it nearly $400 million U.S.

So even with moderate week-to-week declines, it could surpass TPM's domestic gross.

With 25% weekly declines, it would surpass Titanic's domestic gross.

It's guaranteed to hit $200 million Saturday or Sunday. 9 or 10 days.

 

No way. Harry Potter opened huge, but is coming no where near TPM's total gross...it's going to fall well over a 100 million short of TPM to be exact.......SM will suffer a similiar fate.

 

Don't forget, Insomnia comes out the week after aotc. Insomnia definately wont take #1, but the combo of Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Chuck Nolan, and probably good reviews could take away a lot of the adult audience memorial day weekend. Or it could make crap being caught up in the Star Wars rush. I think Scooby-Doo is being underestimated, it will make 60 million first weekend. Scooby wont last long though. It will be killed by word of mouth. I could actually picture AotC having a bigger second weekend than first. It's memorial day weekend and word of mouth should have everyone who didn't realize it had come out the week before or were apprehensive going to see it.

 

Harry Potter has far less B.O. than TPM in the US, but worldwide it's about $30m more than TPM.

I'll be interested to see if AOTC can break any of the international records.

 

Odds are that with AOTC playing on fewer screens than Spiderman and it being a longer movie, it won't beat the opening weekend record. But its staying power however, is more than likely going to far outstrip Spiderman's. Sure enough, there are going to be those who, upon hearing that the record still stands, will focus on ONLY that fact.