Part of looking at movies does involve the business side of show business. We try to have a little fun with it, as each week Tim makes his predictions as to how movies will perform at the Box Office. Then, on Sundays, we look at how Tim’s predictions fared.
We’re trying to get back into the swing of things around here, which means this week we had some predictions from Tim. As usual, he got some ideas right and some ideas… well, not so right. Personally, I didn’t have any issues with his predictions this week, figuring the cult audience for Abraham Lincoln would be strong, but not as strong as the massive following Pixar has. So how did Tim fare?
*Estimates based on information provided by Box Office Mojo |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Brave | $53 million | Brave | $66.7 million |
| 2. | Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter | $35 million | Madagascar 3 | $20.2 million |
| 3. | Madagascar 3 | $15 million | Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter | $16.5 million |
| 4. | Prometheus | $12 million | Prometheus | $10 million |
| 5. | Seeking a Friend for the End of the World | $7.5 million | Rock of Ages | $8 million |
Not bad, but both Tim and I underestimated just how big a following Pixar has (probably guessing conservatively after the critical – but not box office – failure of Cars 2) and overestimated the appeal of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. To be fair, Honest Abe could have done better if the film was better, but I suspect it’s one of those movies where word of mouth quickly spread among the potential audience, warding some people off from seeing it.
I do find it interesting that the top two movies are “kids movies”. We’re in summer, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that younger audience members would make up a bigger part of the audience, but I expected Brave to take a lot out of Madagascar‘s sails, especially considering the animal-driven movie has been out for three weeks.
I’ll be interested to see Tim’s picks for the upcoming week. Can Brave follow the trend of other bigger movies and remain on top for more than one week, or will the appeal of Magic Mike be enough to get moms to leave their kiddies home for a night out on their own? We’ll see what Tim thinks later this week, as Tim takes on the Box Office!
