Surley thats a typo and is only meant to say 30 honestly I think 30 is even a strecth, every reaction I have heard when this trailer comes on is "Has Mel Gibson lost his mind ? "

dolce, heh.

Scary Movie 4 and United 93 will make pennies, but Apocalypto will make $300 million?

Yes. You guys will see. I am going to be so on this month.

WeshouldmakeDolcepredictthetopteneveryweekend.Then,justgothepolar oppositeofherpredictionsforyourderby,andyou'llwin!

2006 is now 3.5% down from last year, as of yesterday. And V for Vendetta won't do much to help, as The Ring Two opened on this same weekend and will likely make more than V for Vendetta will.

I think from here on until MI3 - 2006 is a lock to win 2 weekends: The Ice Age weekend and the weekend before MI3.
Alot is riding on those first 3 weeks of May to get 06 ahead.

The summer is going to have to be really, really strong, because December I think we'll see a decrease over 2005, and so alot depends on May/June. We'll know soon whether it looks like another down year.

I am not sure people realise how poor the first two weekend of May last year were.. with MI3 opening this year, we are going to blow past last year. The top 12 last year that weekend made 78 million. MI3 should be able to pull that alone. The rest of the top 12 should make another 50 million or so. American Haunting also opens that weekend, whatever that is.. That will wipe out any loss we will have by then (though Ice Age 3 will shrink that loss alot)

The second weekend of May came in around 94 million. Not only will we have the second weekend of MI3, which should come in around 40 million, we also have 3 openers; Just my luck with Lindsay Lohan, which should easily pull in 12-15 million, Posiedon, which should pull in between 15-20 million, and Goal!, which should be good for at least 5 million. Add in the rest of the top 12, and we should be up 15-20 million for the weekend.

The next weekend was when Sith opened last year. It's going to be very hard to match, but I think it is doable. The Da Vinci Code should open to around 50-60 million and Over the Hedge should open to 30-40 million. Those two make up for Sith's opening.

The Memorial day weekend saw Sith gross 70 million over the 4 days, Madagascar gross 61 million and The Longest Yard Gross 50 million. Thank god X3 is opening this weekend this year. For 4 days, I think it will gross 100 million. Throw in the second weekends of Da Vinci and Over the Hedge at around 40 million and 30 million for the 4 days, and you've got a pretty competitive weekend.

The first weekend of June should also be great, since it will be the second weekend of X3, which should come in with at least 40 million. Then you've got the Breakup opening (a lock for 20 million), as well as Nacho Libre and Harsh Crimes (which should both gross at least 10 million). Throw is third weekend's of Over the Hedge and Da Vinci with around 15 million a piece, and we'll be well above the 126 million from last year.

The one weekend I am worried about is the next weekend when CARS opens.. yeah, it's Pixar, but I think this is going to be their first miss... I hope I am wrong though...

It's going to be a great kick off to the summer though

Poseidon will make $15-20 million opening weekend? More like opening day.

really, I don't see it being that big.. it just seems like been there, done that before.. I hope you are right though

Well, with Inside Man opening close to $30 million this weekend, it'll put this weekend over the same weekend last year, finally. And the next few weeks won't be any different.

2005
April 1-3: $97,570,886 (Sin City - $29,120,273)
April 8-10: $78,984,587 (Sahara - $18,068,372)
April 15-17: $74,096,112 (The Amityville Horror - $23,507,007)
April 22-24: $82,256,693 (The Interpreter - $22,822,455)
April 29-1: $80,940,045 (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - $21,103,203)

Pathetic month last year.

yeah, we finished about 10 million above last year this weekend. that's great!
Next Weekend will be phenominal!

We better beat 2005! The last thing I want to hear right now is some whiny Wall Street analyst screaming about the end of movies.

Last year has Sin City opening, but the rest was weak. It came in at 97.5 million for the Top 12. This year should blow past that. Here is how I see it going down ;

1. Ice Age -- 55 million
2. Inside Man -- 16 million
3. ATL -- 9 million
4. Failure to Launch -- 7 million
5. V for Vendetta -- 7 million
6. Basic Instinct 2 -- 6 million
7. Slither -- 5 million
8. The Shaggy Dog -- 5 million
9. Stay Alive -- 5 million
10. She's the Man -- 4 million
11. Larry the Cable Guy -- 4 million
12. Thank You for Smoking -- 2 million

That's a nice top 12 total of 125 million, or 27.5 million above last year.
And it only gets better, as next weekend's numbers to beat are 79 million, and we'll have the second weekend of Ice Age 2 along with the openings of The Benchwarmers, Lucky Number Slevin, Phat Girlz (no clue what this is...) and Take the Lead AND the expansion of Thank you for Smoking into 600+ theatres.

Even better is the next weekend as the numbers to beat are 74 million, with the opening of Scary Movie 4 ( I don't care what y'all say, it's opening above 30 million!) and The Wild, which should be good for at least 20 million. That puts the top 2 alone at about 50 million.

Wow, April is going to absolutley rape last year!!

please expect to see a huge increase this w/e due to Ice Age 2!!! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

is anyone like ... charting this?

first post in this thread maybe????

BINGO!

True. And the last two weekends of April look good too - Sentinal, American Dreamz, United 93 etc.

"Super" summer for the silver screen

By Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com senior writer
March 31, 2006: 3:28 PM EST


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Hollywood hit a well-documented rough patch last year, with annual box office receipts declining for the first time since 1991. But so far in 2006, there's some good news.

According to figures from Exhibitor Relations Co., a movie industry research firm, box office grosses in the U.S. are up -- albeit less than 1 percent -- through March 26.


Let's not go to the movies: With box office sales down, shares of movie theater owners Carmike and Regal have slumped.

The bad news, however, is that the box office bump is due entirely to ticket price increases as opposed to more people actually wanting to see movies; attendance is down 2.2 percent from a year ago. In fact, the number of ticket sales has declined for the past three years straight according to Box Office Mojo, another movie industry research firm.

High hopes
So, with the big studios ready to start unleashing the summer blockbusters in a little more than a month from now – "Mission: Impossible III" opens on May 5 – will there be enough hit flicks to get people to swarm back to the multiplexes and reverse the slide of the past few years?

Hopes are high (then again they always are in Tinseltown) for a box office and attendance upswing this year. And there is reason to think that this summer could be a bonanza for Hollywood.

Sony (Research) appears to have a surefire hit on its hands with the film version of the runaway best selling novel, "The Da Vinci Code." Walt Disney (Research) hopes to replicate the success it had in 2003, when it released Pixar's "Finding Nemo" and the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, with the latest Pixar film "Cars" and the sequel to "Pirates."

Other sequels that could be fan favorites are "X-Men: The Last Stand" from News Corp.'s (Research) Fox and the long-awaited "Superman Returns" from Time Warner's (Research) Warner Bros. studio. (Time Warner also owns CNNMoney.com.)

"This summer should beat last summer. The lineup is better. Studios are returning to their bread and butter, which are sequels. Last summer there were a lot of remakes that didn't excite audiences," said Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com, another movie industry research firm.

There is the potential for some sleeper hits as well.

Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co, said one such contender is "Snakes on a Plane," a movie that's exactly what you'd expect it to be about. Samuel L. Jackson stars as a passenger on a plane full of deadly snakes. (We are not making this up.) The movie, to be released by Time Warner's New Line studio, has already attracted a lot of buzz on various movie blogs.

He said another wildcard is Mel Gibson's new movie. His follow-up to "The Passion of the Christ" is another film that, at first blush, doesn't seem like blockbuster material. It is called "Apocalypto" and is being billed as an action-adventure film about the end of the Mayan empire. Like "Passion" it will feature subtitles; the cast of "Apocalypto" will be speaking in a Mayan dialect known as Yucatec.

Pandya said "Click," a comedy starring Adam Sandler about a guy who discovers a remote control that allows him to fast forward and rewind to certain times in his life, should stand out among all the big action movies.

Dergarabedian added that "Lady in the Water," the latest film from M. Night Shyamalan, who wrote and directed "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs," could be a hit. But Shyamalan's last movie, "The Village" did not live up to expectations.

Finally, he said it will be interesting to see if audiences are ready to see movies about the September 11 terrorist attacks. Two will come out this year. "United 93," about the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania, is due out in late April and the Oliver Stone-directed "World Trade Center' will be released in August.

Summer's promise
With all that in mind, Marla Backer, a media and entertainment analyst with Soleil -- Research Associates, an independent research firm, wrote in a report Friday that she thinks box office grosses from May through early August should be up 12 percent to 15 percent from the same period last year.

Still, if you rewind to this time last year, it was hard to imagine how the summer of 2005 could disappoint. After all, there was the last installment of the "Star Wars" saga due out, as well as "War of the Worlds" and "Batman Begins" to look forward to. And to be sure, those three movies did fare well at the box office. There were some surprise smash hits as well such as "Wedding Crashers" and the documentary "March of the Penguins." But this wasn't enough to get people to make a beeline for the theaters.

Click here for a preview of this summer's hottest movies


"This summer looks very promising. But cautiously, we say every year that summer looks good," said Dergarabedian.

Industry experts have cited many reasons for the downturn in attendance. Rising prices for tickets and at the concession stand may alienate some moviegoers as do the growing number of commercials -- ads that you can't just skip with a TiVo -- that air before movies start.

There's also the fact that movies are increasingly being released to the DVD format more quickly...so many film fans are willing to wait and watch movies in the comfort of their own home instead of trekking to the local theater.

Younger people have more entertainment options these days -- they can listen to their iPods, chat away on MySpace and play games on their Xbox 360. And finally, some argue that a slew of mediocre movies are keeping people away from theaters.

But what is certain is that a box office recovery is sorely needed for Hollywood. It would be welcome news to the big media companies, most of which have seen their stock prices stagnate during the past year. It could also serve as a boost for publicly traded theater owners Regal Entertainment (Research) and Carmike Cinemas (Research), whose stocks are also in the doldrums.

If attendance does bounce back this summer, it could dispel the notion that the age of releasing movies to theaters is drawing to a close. If not, it could cause more concerns in Hollywood and on Wall Street.

"This is a key summer and year. You could call 2005 an anomaly, but if there is a similar slump this year then it's no longer the anomaly. It's the norm," said Dergarabedian.

Thank god for Ice Age 2!

We are going to be about 30 million ahead of this weekend last year, and it is only going to get better through April.

The top twelve should be over $140 million this weekend, or around 44% higher than last year.

And with that, Ice Age 2 looks to outgross all of them in its first weekend. Insane.

Still disapointed that Sin City couldnt power its way over 100m, meh.

I think we should still keep this a VS 2005 thread with mentions to the previous years aswell. As we always compare conecutive years - all the more important considering the so called slump last year. I still think we should still see that running table againt the last 4 years.