Box Office Prediction
Weekend Box Office Predictions (Memorial Day, May 25 - 28, 2007)
Yun Xia

Talking Points

- Box office history is in the making again this holiday weekend, as Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End leads the way in what should be the biggest weekend ever at movie theaters in North America and makes May the biggest month ever by far. To absorb and spread out the incredible demand, Disney is starting shows at 8pm on Thursday. This may cost AWE a shot at re-taking the 3-day opening record that Dead Man's Chest lost to Spider-Man 3, but it will still claim many other records, such as the biggest Memorial Day weekend opening and fastest to $200 million. It already broke one record - the widest release in history at 4,362. It is thought that, with Shrek 3 and Spider-Man 3 still young in theaters, the competition for screens was going to be a problem. It turns out not to be the case because of how weak the rest of the holdovers are. In many of the large theaters, AWE is being shown every 30 minutes, amazing considering its 2:45 runtime, and the total prints should be over 10,000 as Spider-Man 3 was. Early Thursday sellout reports have been remarkable and indicate the film could gross $20-25m from 8pm to 4am alone. The Friday number should be similar to Spider-Man 3's without midnight ($47-48m), and a multiplier similar to what The Day After Tomorrow had will give it a staggering $175m over the long weekend and make it cross the $200m mark in just 100 hours.

- Two weeks ago, long-delayed Lucky You got buried when it was released opposite of Spider-Man 3 and grossed an embarrassing $2.7 million in 2,525 theaters. History looks to repeat itself with Bug, once thought to be a Best Actress contender with Ashley Judd but pushed back at the end, opening against At World's End, which appeals to an even broader collection of demographics. The poll statistics at BOM are almost identical between Bug and Lucky You. Bug does have better reviews and more awareness among award-watchers; also being in fewer theaters should allow it to have somewhat a higher average by being more selective. However, the environment is simply too tough for it to not suffer a similar fate.

- After another record-breaking opening for an animated feature, Shrek 3 has seen its daily numbers eroding at a much faster rate than its predecessor. On its opening Friday, it outpaced Shrek 2 by 36%, but 5 days later, its daily already trailed by 28%. With AWE luring away its audience starting Thursday night, another decline is surely in store, and then Shrek 3 will need a big Friday jump to just avoid dropping over 50%. It will still hold on to all the screens, even adding 50 engagements along the way, but such a good Friday increase in unlikely to materialize considering Shrek 2 only rose 145.4% while facing a competition half as weak in The Day After Tomorrow.

- Trying to continue building on its sparkling performance so far in limited release, Waitress will expand to 510 locations and stand an excellent chance at grabbing the No. 4 position this weekend. Last weekend it had a 78% increase in theater count but saw its PTA dip merely 8%. Even though the latest round of expansion is large, the overall count is not high enough yet for the film to be affected in a significant way by the juggernaut that is AWE. It also has enjoyed great Saturday increases (45.3%, 75.8%, and 69%), which comes in handy for such holiday weekend, as it could have an internal multiplier of over 5.

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