Michael Jackson's This Is It opened Wednesday with a modest gross of $7.5 million. Expectations were set very high for this movie, which studios reportedly battled over with Sony being the highest bidder of $60 million. That said, This Is It's Wednedsay gross is fairly disappointing, especially as it didn't the Hannah Montana concert movie's first day ($8.7 million) and barely went past the Jonas Brothers concert movie's first day ($5 million). While those two movies both opened on Friday and This Is It on a less budy Wednesday, one has to assume Michael Jackson has a much larger fanbase which would have pushed This Is It to a higher level. I believe the media overload of Michael Jackson in the past months probably is the biggest reason for this.
Still, this is a documentary/concert movie and This Is It will probably still end up being the highest grossing movie in that category (though it has to beat the Hannah Montana concert movie first). While some analysts were expecting over $70 million for its first 5 days, I now predict a five-day gross of a little more than $26 million, with a weekend gross of $17 million. This would barely give it the #1 weekend position. It could rebound more with the weekend, but it has Halloween to hurt it and I believe a good amount of its fanbase has already rushed out to see it.
Halloween falling on a Saturday hasn't happened since 1998, so it should be interesting to see how the holdovers play out (most daily box office figures aren't available prior to 2000). The Halloween-themed movies should get a very nice bump on Saturday (Saw VI, Paranormal Activity, The Stepfather, and Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant). However, Saw VI will still overall implode over the weekend, just like all the other Saw's. The family films won't be hurt too horribly on Saturday as most of their attendance is during the day anyway, but they still should lose 20% of their Saturday (due to trick or treating) and recover slightly on Sunday. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs should have the best drop in the top ten besides Paranormal Activity. Adult-targeted films (Couples Retreat, Law Abiding Citizen) tend to also get a boost on Halloween, but their Saturday boost will probably be equalized by a bigger Sunday drop.
My predictions:
1. Michael Jackson's This Is It - $17 million (NEW)
2. Paranormal Activity - $16 million (-24%)
3. Law Abiding Citizen - $7.6 million (-39%)
4. Where the Wild Things Are - $7.5 million (-47%)
5. Couples Retreat - $5 million (-53%)
6. Saw VI - $4.5 million (-68%)
7. Astro Boy - $3.7 million (-45%)
8. The Stepfather - $3.3 million (-47%)
9. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - $3.2 million (-39%)
10. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant - $3 million (-52%)
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