Predictions above spanning 6/23/2011-6/26/2011

5 new openers are coming out this week but only one has a shot at #1. That is the Chinese propaganda film entitled Beginning Of The Great Revival. It is hoping to become another $500,000 opener like The Founding Of A Republic. The good news is that every theater is showing this film and is giving it full day showtimes. Bad news is that besides a few outliers, many places are empty. It's hard to pinpoint where this will end up since some theaters have shows already sold out which means that people could theoretically buy out a show just to make its gross look good.

Also, the tropical storm has already begun to affect Hong Kong. Thursday's grosses for all movies will be slightly affected by this phenomenon.

Pre-sales have definitely looked weak but it's possible that this will see a last minute surge in walk-ins. $400,000 is a good benchmark. It won't quite reach the level that Founding Of A Republic debuted at but it will do well enough to capture the crown.

Other openers this include Treasure Inn, the Colin Farrell starrer London Boulevard and 2 Japanese imports: Tomorrow's Joe and SP: The Motion Picture 2. Treasure Inn is getting a fairly wide release but ticket sales do not back up the justification for so many theaters. This is looking like it will miss $100,000 even with around 15 theaters showing this. London Boulevard, like The Conspirator last week, is only playing in 5 theaters but it hasn't displayed the same kind of pre-selling as The Conspirator did last week so $15,000 seems likely. The 2 Japanese movies won't do much.

Green Lantern, meanwhile, has already begun to show signs of superhero legs. It will have the typical 2nd weekend frontloaded drop but even more so due to the toxic word of mouth. It had a muted Friday so it'll get a slight reprieve on that day but the other 3 should see very steep drops. 64% drop is possible.

On the flipside, X-Men has enjoyed weeks of good holds and with it keeping its screens from last weekend, it could fall to its lowest drop yet. A drop under 30% could happen especially with the support of all theaters.

The same cannot be said for Super 8 as it lost night shows to X-Men this week. It also lost full day IMAX showtimes and now the 2 IMAX theaters are splitting the showtimes between Pirates and Super 8 (both in IMAX) and X-Men (not in IMAX). I am not ready to predict it falling over 70% due to many theaters still giving this showtimes but it looks like the end for Super 8. -65% is possible.

Hangover 2 has enjoyed solid drops so far in its run but it's looking like this weekend it will take a slightly bigger tumble. In its 2 weekends following its opening weekend, it has posted better than expected drops. However, it has again gotten screen cuts so another drop over 50% is likely. It is still playing quite strongly in some areas so a drop over 60% doesn't look like it will happen. A drop of 56% would put it at $63,259 for the weekend.

Pirates has gotten back its IMAX screens after Super 8 did unsatisfactory in its 2nd weekend. It will share with Super 8 and X-Men but this extra boost could propel it to drop less than 40%. For now, I'm saying -42% due to theater losses.