So it acts like a regular weekend?

Nice to see The Wild go down in tracking three weeks in a row

Saturday will suck, So will Sunday.

Scary Movie 4 - 42 mil
The Wild - 13 mil

Going by past years, you usually have to multiply the Friday numbers by anwhere from 2.3 (kids movies) to 2.6-7 for returning movies/adult fare. Because kids have off school on Good Friday, they'll go see family films then but then Easter Sunday isn't a great day for movies. For instance, if you think Scary MOvie can do $50 million over the weekend, you should divide by 2.5 (or less!) to figure out how much it might make on Friday. ($20 million!) So it does tend to affect movies more towards the negative than the positive because Sunday is slower than a normal Sunday.

You are exactly right.

Also, this is why the monday drops are so low, especially since it's spring break for the kiddies.

Scary Movie 4 is on moviefone without big frontpage ads, pretty much what I expected in order for it to open in the $40m range. The BOM poll number (31.7% Opening Weekend) is very strong. The Wild's (7.0% Opening Weekend) isn't terrible either; by comparison, Valiant had 4.6%, so the PTA shouldn't be below $4,000.

Good for Scary Movie, although for kids movies BOM polls seem like such indirect indicators that I'm skeptical of their usefulness.

I don't think you can really give much weight to moviefone when Lucky Number Slevin is #1, Take the Lead is #2 and the top movie in the country is #5.

Hehe, you're again missing the point on how to use moviefone as a tool.

Good stats from Horlicks at HSX:

The Wild is on Moviefone, but there's also a related article on the front page as well.

Box Office Guru

I just can't see less than $40 million for Scary Movie 4 this weekend. I also think he's overpredicting The Wild quite a bit.

Every site is earlier this week:

Variety:
Scary Movie 4 - has a good shot of besting the $48.1 million bow in October 2003 of Scary Movie 3
The Wild - An opening in the 20s seems likely

Full article

The Hollywood Reporter. I don't have subscription, but the opening summary said it expects Meltdown to take the 2nd spot over The Wild.

Derby:
1. Not So Scary Movie: 30.0
2. The Calm: 20.0
3. Stone Age: The Heat down: 18.9
4. Bench Coolers: 9.9
5. Steal the Lead: 6.8
6. Outside Man: 5.2
7. Thank You for getting Cancer: 5.0
8. Lucky Number Seven: 4.0
9. Lucky to Launch: 2.7
10. M for Movie: 1.9

Final Derby Predictions:

1. Scary Movie 4- $37.3 million
2. Ice Age: The Meltdown- $19.7 million
3. The Wild- $17.1 million
4. The Benchwarmers- $10.2 million
5. Take the Lead- $7.2 million
6. Inside Man- $5.6 million
7. Thank You for Smoking- $5.1 million
8. Lucky Number Slevin- $3.9 million
9. Failure to Launch- $2.5 million
10. V For Vendetta- $2.0 million

WSEX has Scary Movie 4 at 40m, with the money lines being -130 for over and EVEN for under. So, I guess that indicates something around 43m.

Final predicts are generally close to the derby avg. (not purposely)...SM4 I went with 43 million...I can't see the hype overpassing that of 3.

Scary Movie 4: 47m
The Wild - 18m

SM3 had the advantage of opening near Halloween. SM4 won't have that but will be offset by slightly higher ticket prices and possibly being a better film, for a net wash. The Wild doesn't have to make very much on Friday to outperform most expectations.

WoKJ where we pretend to understand the movie business.

Likely Final Predictions
1. Scary Movie 4 - $47.9 million($13,300 PTA)
2. Ice Age 2 - $21.3 million(-38%)
3. The Wild - $13.6 million($4800 PTA)
4. Benchwarmers - $9.8 million(-50%)
5. Take the Lead - $7.2 million(-40%)
6. Inside Man - $5.6 million(-39%)
7. Thank You for Smoking - $4.4 million($4300 PTA)
8. Lucky Number Slevin - $3.7 million(-47%)
9. Failure to Launch - $2.6 million(-37%)
10. V for Vendetta - $1.8 million(-46%)

Still a bit wary on The Wild, moviefone makes to want to predict $5000+.

I'd argue The Wild needs a very good Friday because of this particular weekend, where a $6M opening day will mean $13-14M weekend instead of the normal $20-25M for a kid movie.

BJs Predictions:

1. Scary Movie 4 - 45m
2. Ice Age: The Meltdown - 19m
3. The Wild - 16m
4. The Benchwarmers - 10.4m
5. Take the Lead - 6.9m
6. Inside Man - 4.6m
7. Thank You for Smoking - 4.2m
8. Lucky Number Slevin - 4.0m
9. Failure to Launch - 2.4m
10. V for Vendetta - 1.6m

My Predicton.

Scary Movie 4 - 42.5m ($11800 pta)
Ice Age 2 - 18.6m (-45%)
The Wild - 12.8m ($4500 pta)
Benchwarmers - 9.6m (-51%)
Take the Lead - 6.7m (-44%)
Inside Man - 4.9m (-46%)
Thank You For Smoking - 4.4m ($4300 pta)
Lucky Number Slevin - 3.8m (-46%)
Failure to Launch - 2.5m (-39%)
V for Vendetta - 1.7m (-50%)

Top ten - 107.5m

Scary Movie will get a pta slightly lower thanks to Sunday.
Ice Age will lose some people to wild.
The Wild should do Home on the Range like business
Benchwarmers will get killed by Scary Movie 4.
Take the Lead's midweek has been a bit iffy.
Inside Man will drop this much thanks to theater loss.
Thank You For Smoking will still perform well in big cities, but will have trouble in smaller cities.
Lucky Number Sliven will have the normal drop for a thriller.
Failure will drop a bit more thanks to highten competition.
V will suffer thanks to theater loss.

Munky's Derby:

1. Scary Movie 4- $41.1 mil
2. Ice Age: The Meltdown- $18.5 mil
3. The Benchwarmers- $8.9 mil
4. The Wild- $7.4 mil
5. Take the Lead- $6.3 mil
6. Thank You for Smoking- $5.6 mil
7. Inside Man- $4.8 mil
8. Lucky Number Slevin- $3.3 mil
9. Failure to Launch- $2.8 mil
10. V for Vendetta- $1.9 mil

Top 10 Total: $100.6 mil

http://www.bet365.com has a Over/Under 42 million for Scary Movie 4 in there 'specials' section.

That's close to where I see it.