March 20-22 Tracking (and Happy Birthday, Keyser!!!)

Mase's Saturday estimates:

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Knowing (Summit) - $24M, $7,210 PTA, $24M cume
2. NEW – I Love You, Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) - $20.35M, $7,508 PTA, $20.35M cume
3. NEW – Duplicity (Universal) - $14.48M, $5,626 PTA, $14.48M cume
4. Race to Witch Mountain (Disney) - $13.86M, $4,349 PTA, $45.57M cume
5. Watchmen (Warner Bros) - $7.04M, $2,006 PTA, $98.37M cume
6. The Last House on the Left (Universal) - $5.96M, $2,483 PTA, $24.09M cume
7. Taken (Fox) - $4.64M, $1,744 PTA, $133.67M cume
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) - $3.83M, $1,863 PTA, $138.33M cume
9. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) - $3.45M, $1,880 PTA, $88.14M cume
10. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) - $2.37M, $1,346 PTA, $141.58M cume


Wow. Didn't expect Witch Mountain to drop off that much. MvA will OWN the box office next week.

So, looks like Watchmen may fall at the 110-115m range. Last House still ended up being a pretty good pick at $6, as it should end at at least 32, maybe a little higher. Race Mountain may end at 60m with MvA coming out next week. I'm still hoping ILYM comes up and takes Knowing out of top spot.

Steve's off on I Love You, Man. It opened right in between Role Models and Forgetting Sarah Marshall on Friday. With March Madness, it will get $18 million for the weekend.

Race to Witch Mountain didn't drop that hard. It's drop will only be in the 30-40% range.

Not surprised to see the low Cinemascore on Duplicity. The film, despite good writing and direction, is a confusing mess and it makes too many detours in the plot to give us long flashbacks. Also, Julia Roberts is miscast and Tom Wilkinson is barely in the film despite being billed third.

I wouldn't be surprised if I Love You Man actually winds up winning the weekend when the studio estimates come out on Sunday.

Yeah i wouldnt be surprised either if I Love You Man ended up winning the weekend there pretty close right now.

According to BOM, Knowing is in first by nearly 7 million.

Box Office Moguls Weekend Estimates (which could still be updated later, perhaps changing the PTA field)

Top 5
1. Knowing (24.8M)
2. I Love You, Man (18M)
3. Duplicity (14.4M)
4. Race to Witch Mountain (13M, -46%)
5. Watchmen (6.7M, -67%)

PTA
1. Sin Sombre (Avg 12,900)
2. Sunshine Cleaning (Avg. 11,016)
3. Knowing (Avg. 7,447)
4. Under the Sea 3D (Avg. 7,148)
5. I Love You, Man (Avg. 7,148)

I wonder how Knowing will perform in the coming weeks? Is the word of mouth going to be bad and destroy the film? Other similarly bad reviewed films like Paul Blart and Taken came out of middle of the ground predictions to dominate Jan. and Feb., or it may drop hugely in the coming weeks like Watchman has. While I don't think It'll reach the hights of Blart/Taken, I could see it do fairly well in the long run. 60/70M and a decent chunk of Top 5 points will make it worth its price. It could hit the top 3 next week (MVA definite #1) - I doubt Haunting will light the world on fire, and I don't think 12 Rounds will perform very well either.

What do you mean it could hit the Top 3 next weekend, J-Man? Its pretty much clinched that.

Very harsh for Ract to Witch Mountain. Hopefully it can find its legs.

Knowing won't fall hard because it seems to be having great responses.o I Love You, Man will hold well, Duplicity may not.

I said could, because all of my predictions for Watchmen were way off haha.

The Haunting in Connecicut will proably tank it looks like shit even though are advertising it quite a bit.

12 Rounds will do better than expected because it has the whole WWE thing backing it up and John Cena is a very popular wrestler and it should do decently.

Disagree on both accounts.

I'm with Geezer.

For Monsters vs. Aliens tracking from both RS and MTC is placing it in the high 40's, BOM polls show it significantly higher than DreamWorks' past few movies (even thoguh they opened to $60 million), and 3D will boost ticket prices, but it will be in a lot less theaters than DreamWorks normally has (and even that Horton had), because it will be in 3500 theaters.