December has been relatively quiet thus far, in terms of box-office. With no “King Kong,” “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “Lord of the Rings,” or another major blockbuster film, 2006 has been falling a little behind. “Night at the Museum” looks to be the film to turn it around and get 2006 to end on a high note. Here are the box-office prospects for “Night at the Museum.”

Release Date
“Night at the Museum” has landed a spot on Christmas weekend, a generally solid, but awkward weekend in the box-office. This year, Christmas day falls on Monday; therefore, on Sunday (Christmas Eve), all films should see very large drops in attendance. Usually, films would drop around 25-35% on a normal weekend, but with the Christmas Eve effect, most films will experience drops in the 50-60% range. However, on Monday, there will be major jumps, and Tuesday, another smaller increase. The last time Christmas fell on a Monday was in 2000, when “Cast Away” opened. “Cast Away” opened to $11.8m on Friday, increased 3% to $12.1m on Saturday, dropped 52% to $5.8m on Sunday and increased 88% to $10.9m on Monday. Ideally, this is a great weekend to release a film. Last year, “Fun with Dick and Jane” and “Cheaper by the Dozen 2” opened on this weekend to relatively low numbers ($14.4m and $9.3m, respectively) and thanks to excellent weekend-to-total multipliers, both made over $80m, with “Fun with Dick and Jane” even passing $100m. With all schools off, films aimed at kids and teenagers gain the greatest benefit. It’s not unusual for a film to have a higher second weekend than its first weekend, as the second weekend is a full holiday weekend (last year, every film increased by at least 15%). “Night at the Museum” is in a good position, especially since it is basically the “event” film of the holiday season. The three-film battle discussed in the previous “Eragon” article between “Charlotte’s Web,” “Eragon” and “Night at the Museum” doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, as “Eragon” didn’t outperform expectations and “Charlotte’s Web” severely underperformed.

Box-Office Effect: Positive

Competition
“Night at the Museum” faces a ton of competition, all of which could take away some audiences, but none a major threat when you’re in a holiday season. “Eragon” opened to an expected $23.5m, and should find its way to $90-110m total, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to take away a lot of audiences, as it was a little frontloaded over its opening weekend. Likewise, “Charlotte’s Web” opened to just $12m, and while the holiday should be VERY friendly to it and push it past $70m total, it seems like families might be picking “Museum” over it, surprisingly. Other films include “The Pursuit of Happyness” (which opened to an excellent $27m and looks to be the only film that could challenge “Museum” for the December crown), “We Are Marshall,” “Rocky Balboa,” “Black Christmas,” and others, but none of which should be hurting “Museum.” In any other time of the year, the competition would hurt, but with the holidays, moviegoers often view lots of films instead of picking one over the other, and “Museum” appeals to all audiences. It’s not dependent on just children like “Charlotte’s Web” or just teenagers and adults like “Rocky Balboa” – it has children, teenagers, and adults. Not that “Museum” won’t be hurt at all, because there are so many choices, but it should fare well with it.

Box-Office Effect: Neutral

Cast
“Night at the Museum” features two major draws that targets different audiences. Ben Stiller, one of the major comedic draws today, will bring in teenagers and young adults, while Robin Williams will attract children, adults, and families in general. Although Robin Williams isn’t a top draw like he used to be, he can still bring in families. This is his fourth film of the year after “RV,” “The Night Listener” and “Happy Feet.” Obviously, just his voice didn’t draw people into “Happy Feet,” but he definitely helped “RV” reach $71.4m in April (after a $16.4m opening). He’s still a reasonable draw, and his supporting role in “Museum” should help a little. Ben Stiller, on the other hand, is a major draw for teenagers and adults. “Dodgeball,” “Meet the Fockers,” and others have shown his rising success as a draw. Ben Stiller is one of the major reasons that people will even check the film out, or the reason for people on the fence about whether to go or not.

Box-Office Effect: Positive

Marketing
As I said before, it seemed like 20th Century Fox put a lot more effort into “Night at the Museum” in comparison to their other major December picture, “Eragon.” However, as shown by this past weekend’s numbers, Fox’s late marketing didn’t hurt “Eragon” has much as some thought it would. Marketing has been relatively strong for “Museum.” The trailer debuted with the biggest film of 2006 and one of the biggest films of all-time, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” Since then, it’s been attached to lots of major films, and all major kids flicks. It has received the right amount of push to show it’s the major film of the holiday season. All the footage shown so far has created a decent amount of buzz, with great shots to draw audiences in through the rest of the year and into a weak January.

Box-Office Effect: Positive

Screen Counts / Theater Counts
“Night at the Museum” is estimated to be in over 3,600 theaters opening weekend, a rather massive theater count, although it’s becoming more common. It’s a smart idea to unleash it in a large amount of theaters, though, because Fox can make up for the number of films being released, thus taking up screens in smaller theaters. For the most part, “Museum” should dominate in screens as well, obtaining 3-4 screens in larger theaters (compared to the 1-2 “Eragon” generally received) opening weekend, and still maintaining 2 after the holidays, thanks to a poor line-up for the beginning of January. It should be making more throughout the holidays than the other films will, so keeping the largest auditoriums in each theater shouldn’t be difficult. “Eragon,” “Charlotte’s Web,” “The Good Shepherd,” “Black Christmas,” “We Are Marshall,” and “Rocky Balboa” should be fighting for the remainder, but “Night at the Museum” looks secure, at least for the opening weekend.

Box-Office Effect: Positive

Final Thoughts / Predictions
With “Charlotte’s Web” failing to excite the box-office and “Eragon” not doing overwhelmingly well, “Night at the Museum” is looking to be the big winner of the battle, with only Will Smith’s “The Pursuit of Happyness” potentially preventing it from the #1 film of December. All signs are pointing towards a very solid opening weekend, VERY strong legs for the first two weeks, and solid legs thereafter. The question is, how far can it go? At this point, I don’t see the film grossing under $100m total. However, it doesn’t seem like $200m is a likely scenario, though still a possibility and still in the cards. With a strong theater count (most likely around 3,700), reasonably strong draws, an excellent release date and the holiday season, there’s no reason it shouldn’t do well.

Because Sunday is Christmas Eve and all films should experience heavy drops, I expect the following breakdown for the long weekend:

Friday: $10.6m
Saturday: $11.1m (+5%)
Sunday: $5.6m (-50%)
Monday: $9.2m (+65%)
Tuesday: $9.7m (+5%)

3-Day Weekend: $27.3m ($7,500 per-theater-average in 3,650 theaters)
4-Day Weekend: $36.5m
5-Day Weekend: $46.2m

After the long weekend, “Museum” should be strong weekdays and a nice second weekend gross, probably close to the opening weekend gross. After the holidays, with weak competition, the soft drops should continue. I expect “Museum” to finish with $155-175m total. The low end range would be roughly a $23-25m three-day weekend and $135-155m total. The high end would be $30-33m three-day and $170m-190m total, with an outside shot of $200m if word-of-mouth is excellent.