Buscemi's August Predictions

I've just realized that I had never done one of these before (though I predict all of the time in the chatroom). So I guess here goes.

August 7th
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra (opening in 3,500+ sites)

Pros: it's a movie based on a toy line (Transformers, anyone?)
Cons: almost all of the early word of mouth has been terrible
Box Office Prediction: $35 million opening/$80 million finish

Julie and Julia (opening in 2,300+ sites)

Pros: there always seems to be at least one summer chick flick that breaks out, Meryl Streep always seems to draw
Cons: cooking really isn't a very successful plot point to promote
Box Office Prediction: 25/95

A Perfect Getaway (opening in 2,000+ sites)

Pros: Milla Jovovich
Cons: everything else (constant delays, plot looks much like Turistas, etc.)
Box Office Prediction: 7/18

August 14th
District 9 (estimated to be in 2,750+ sites)

Pros: Peter Jackson produced the film, documentary-styled films seem to be popular lately
Cons: the R rating, the lack of American names in the cast and crew
Box Office Prediction: 35/85

The Time Traveler's Wife (estimated to be in 2,500+ sites)

Pros: based on a best-selling novel
Cons: the film has been long delayed, plot is too similar to 2006's The Lake House
Box Office Prediction: 10/30

Bandslam (estimated to be in 2,000+ sites)

Pros: Vanessa Hudgens, an exclusive New Moon will be shown before prints
Cons: Vanessa Hudgens isn't the lead, the film basically looks like Step Up with bands
Box Office Prediction: 7/20

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (estimated to be in 1,850+ sites)

Pros: cast of veteran cult actors, producers and director are well-established (producers did Anchorman and Talledega Nights, director co-created Chappelle's Show)
Cons: this has been on the shelf for quite some time, Jeremy Piven isn't exactly a box office draw
Box Office Prediction: 6/16

Ponyo (estimated to be in 800+ sites)

Pros: Miyazaki is the most respected anime filmmaker of all-time, Disney is distributing
Cons: anime isn't very successful at the box office, Miyazaki's highest grossing film domestically grossed only $8 million
Box Office Prediction: 5/20

Pool Boys (estimated to be in 400+ sites)

Pros: one of the actors from Twilight is in it
Cons: just look the damn thing up. It's full of cons.
Box Office Prediction: under $1 million total

August 21st
Inglorious Basterds (estimated to be in 3,350+ sites)

Pros: Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt
Cons: early word from Cannes isn't very good, awareness is very low right now, the film runs over two and a half hours
Box Office Prediction: 18/40

Shorts (estimated to be in 3,000+ sites)

Pros: it's the only kids' film opening until mid-September, Robert Rodriguez had success with the Spy Kids movies
Cons: advertising seems to be limited right now, movie may be too weird for some audiences
Box Office Prediction: 8/30

Post Grad (estimated to be in 1,250+ sites)

Pros: Alexis Bledel has success with Gilmore Girls
Cons: it's from the now-defunct Fox Atomic, a comedy about the current recession may not be what audiences want to see
Box Office Prediction: 3/7

August 28th
Halloween II (estimated to be in 3,450+ sites)

Pros: the first film did over $55 million domestically, Michael Myers is one of the most established villains in horror movie history
Cons: the first film didn't have a very good reception, the film faces The Final Destination on the same day
Box Office Prediction: 22/48

The Final Destination (estimated to be in 2,750+ sites, at least 1,400+ sites will run it in 3-D)

Pros: 3-D horror has tended to be successful so far, the Final Destination series is popular with teenagers for its elaborate death scenes and has averaged $50 million for each installment
Cons: faces Halloween II on the same day
Box Office Prediction: 30/70

Taking Woodstock (estimated to be in 1,000+ sites)

Pros: directed by Ang Lee, Demetri Martin is one of the most popular comedians at the moment
Cons: early word has been lukewarm at best, film may have only limited appeal due to the setting and characters
Box Office Prediction: 4/13

WOM has actually been getting better on G.I. Joe.

I highly doubt Julie & Julia will outgross G.I. Joe, but everything else seems to be about right.

I like this, Buscemi. Reminds me a little of Mr. Informative's "Studs and Duds" column on old FM. Maybe Barca would consent to giving you your own thread on the "columns" part of the boards?

God knows I'm tired of carrying all the water...

Yeah, only i'm doing the opposite of everything he says.

No way does Time Traveler's Wife only rake 30 million.

P.S. that one chick flick that breaks out ever summer was called The Proposal.

Earlier this summer, New Line released another adaptation called My Sister's Keeper. That film was a big disappointment at the box office despite a release date near Independence Day (and the director of The Notebook). With The Time Traveler's Wife, you've got a long delayed film with a historically unsuccessful combination of genres (science fiction and romance) and a bad release date in mid-August. Also since Julie and Julia (with should appeal better to women since it's got Meryl Streep and since it is a comedy) is opening a week earlier, expect it to be another My Sister's Keeper at the box office.

Actually, per our game, Sister's Keeper did decently well...

But wasn't it only $8?

$8 in BO, $9 in Ultimate.

I don't understand... First you call Sister's Keeper a disapointment ($47 M, $30 M budget, a 5x in the game) then you say Julie and Julia will be just like it (a disapointment I assume) at $95 M?

I don't understand...

No no, I said The Time Traveler's Wife will be like My Sister's Keeper. Julie and Julia will make sure of that.

And My Sister's Keeper actually finished with $47 million? I thought it stalled at $32 million.

made almost $650 K this weekend and is at exactly $46,737,000 (est)

Damn that is pretty good for Sister's Keeper. TTW may do better than you think, mainly due to Rachel McAdams (who is absolutely gorgeous btw). Also, the ad campaign is going at least. I don't watch much TV, as I watch shows through the net, but I saw a preview on a show a friend was watching tonight.
Also, it will prob play to a younger audience than J & J.

McAdams, though she is very beautiful and talented, tends to be hit and miss at the box office. After she took three years off, she returned in 2008 with The Lucky Ones. The final result on that film? A $250,000 opening weekend and it was gone after that one week.

She probably won't get a hit until Sherlock Holmes in December.

The Time Traveller's Wife has been a best seller for us for two years and we can't order in replacement books fast enough to keep up with how quickly we're selling them right now.

Food for thought.

Good thought, Roode. We all know how Twilight turned out.

Do you know why she took 3 years off, Busc, out of curiosity?

ok just a few things
GIJoe is tracking to open between 50-60
The only bad thing I've heard about Inglorious Basterds is its run time other than that most people loved it.
You really expect final destination to make 20 million more than the other three when its opening against H2? yes its in 3D but so was the last one albeit less screens. It's got three weeks in 3D enough to do some decent money but not 70.

As Roode said, Time Traveler's wife is a best-selling, beloved book. Rachel McAdams is doing her bread and butter in this one. The thing that made her famous, the sappy chick flick. The Lucky Ones is not a good comparison. A more reasonable one would be The Notebook. I'm not saying this is the second coming of that, but it will finish closer to Notebook's numbers than it will to 30 million. You can book that.

geezer9687 wrote:As Roode said, Time Traveler's wife is a best-selling, beloved book. Rachel McAdams is doing her bread and butter in this one. The thing that made her famous, the sappy chick flick. The Lucky Ones is not a good comparison. A more reasonable one would be The Notebook. I'm not saying this is the second coming of that, but it will finish closer to Notebook's numbers than it will to 30 million. You can book that.

Rachel McAdams = famous? Not in my neck of the woods... I looked up Time Traveler's Wife on Amazon and its #1. I'm not sure I could compare it to Twilight, however.

Buscemi wrote:Earlier this summer, New Line released another adaptation called My Sister's Keeper. That film was a big disappointment at the box office despite a release date near Independence Day (and the director of The Notebook). With The Time Traveler's Wife, you've got a long delayed film with a historically unsuccessful combination of genres (science fiction and romance) and a bad release date in mid-August. Also since Julie and Julia (with should appeal better to women since it's got Meryl Streep and since it is a comedy) is opening a week earlier, expect it to be another My Sister's Keeper at the box office.

Boosh - Not trying to be critical but you have to remember that your predictions are made based on a 19 year olds view of the world. How many middle age women other than your mother do you really know? There is not one woman in my circle of friends who isn't dying to see this movie. In fact, we're going to be on our vacation when it opens, and my wife asked all of her friends if they would wait to see it until she got back. They all told her that they would go a second time when we got back. What might surprise you is that most of these same folks have much less interest in seeing Julie and Julia. This movie will appeal to the entire Sex and the City crowd, and whereas My Sister's Keeper was a tear jerker in a sad way (Which may have kept some peiople from wanting to see it especially in the Summertime), Time Traveler's Wife is a tear jerker in a romantic kind of way. We stopped into 3 bookstores yesterday to pick up stuff to read on the plane, and it was sold out in all 3 stores.

You say that it is long dealyed (By which I assume you mean that they don't think it's a great film), but guess what, unless you are someone who hangs out in movie chat rooms or on a site like ours, you really have no way of knowing that. Not one person, again, in my circle of friends has any idea that this movie is long delayed, and even if they did, they would not care. To these women, it is something to go and see after having been dragged to Terminator, Transformers and Harry Potter earleir this Summer, and it stars Eric Bana who many of them find to be hot.

What you have to remember is that most ordinary folks (And I don't consider any of us on this list to be ordinary when it comes to movies) don't go or not go to movies based on who directed it, who's producing it, who is distributing it, or whether it's been delayed or not. They go because of the type of movie it is, and if it stars someone they want to see.

thswrestler160 wrote:ok just a few things
GIJoe is tracking to open between 50-60
The only bad thing I've heard about Inglorious Basterds is its run time other than that most people loved it.
You really expect final destination to make 20 million more than the other three when its opening against H2? yes its in 3D but so was the last one albeit less screens. It's got three weeks in 3D enough to do some decent money but not 70.

Final Destination 3 was not in 3D.

I thought McAdams quit acting after her hits in 2005, why did she stop for almost 4 years?

Through Buscemi's eyes and ears, this is what Keyser said:

All People Are STUPID!!!!!

Yes, I believe that is what I was saying.

The Time Traveler's Wife was originally scheduled to open last Christmas. The film was delayed to mid-August for some unexplained reason (my best guess is that the film tested badly with audiences). Usually when a film is pushed back from Oscar season to a month known for studio dumps, that means that it won't do well (examples: The Soloist, lots of Weinstein releases).

Another problem with the film: McAdams and Bana aren't big audience draws. Yes they are talented, but people don't go to see movies for them alone. This is especially true for Bana. Nearly all of his American films have either been box office disappointments or have failed at the box office.

Shrykespeare wrote:I like this, Buscemi. Reminds me a little of Mr. Informative's "Studs and Duds" column on old FM. Maybe Barca would consent to giving you your own thread on the "columns" part of the boards?

God knows I'm tired of carrying all the water...

No need to replace me, I'm mulling a comeback. But I promise, I won't go all Brett Favre on y'all.

PS, Harry Potter was pushed back too. I know that's not the point being made about delays, but all on its own, pushing something back doesn't always mean failure. Perhaps Time Traveler's Wife got bumped simply because of all the turmoil New Line was going through? That's certainly possible.