The box office isn’t looking to gear up this weekend as the critically-maligned “Cop Out” from Kevin Smith won’t become a major hit. Its only other new competition is the horror remake “The Crazies,” which has a small chance of breaking out. For the most part, it looks like a weekend of holdovers.
“Cop Out,” originally titled “A Couple of Dicks,” has Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as buddy-cops investigating a Mexican drug cartel. Sounds like Bad Boys 3, or even that possible new “Die Hard” vehicle for Willis he recently announced, but the flick is actually a would-be comedy from Kevin Smith–most famous for “Clerks,” and more recently “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” Smith has never had an outright hit. Granted, his movies are often profitable with respect to their budgets, and he has his cult following. However, he has yet to make a major commercial success. “Zack and Miri” disappointed recently, and despite venturing in his first solo big-budget film with “Cop Out,” the atrocious reviews and unfunny trailers will make this one a big miss at the box office. Too bad for Willis, an actor I greatly appreciate in action and dramatic films, because he really hasn’t seen much light since “Live Free or Die Hard” made big bucks 3 years ago. No wonder he wants to go back for Round 5 in 2011. To be fair to Kevin Smith, “Cop Out” is his first feature he didn’t write, and the man has a mostly solid track record for his comedies. But he hasn’t made a movie people flat-out loved since “Chasing Amy.” “Cop Out” still has the potential to break $20 million, a huge number in Kevin Smith’s world. It just kind of depends on how forgiving audiences are of bad reviews and bad marketing. Another big wrench in the tire is the fact that the movie won’t even have the Kevin Smith crowd to rely on necessarily, as this isn’t being touted as ‘a Kevin Smith film.’ Unfortunately, “Cop Out” (a project I was looking forward to at one point) looks to more than likely rake in $14 million (still a personal best for the director).
Next up is ‘The Crazies,’ a remake of a 1973 George A. Romero horror flick. Not too many young people out there are familiar with this title, so ‘The Crazies’ isn’t relying on its recognition to sell tickets. With “Resident Evil,” “28 Weeks Later” and “Quarantine” being recent ‘living dead’ successes, this movie could follow the same path. The previews have been very good for the genre, and despite ‘The Wolfman’ and ‘Shutter Island’ still hunting after the horror crowd, ‘The Crazies’ could turn out to be a small success. Early reviews are actually extremely positive from critics. I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘Crazies’ takes in $12 million. If the weekend turns out to be really ‘crazy’ (terrible pun), ‘The Crazies’ could really shock with a high $18 million number. For now I’ll stick with 12.
With those two films not looking to crack $20 million, that leaves the gate wide open for Scorsese and his buddy-boy Leo to take the number 1 spot again. Even if “Shutter Island” loses half its audience from last weekend, we’re still looking at a healthy $20.5 million for the duo. Now the big question is whether the flick will play like a horror movie and drop 55-65% or if it’ll hold like an adult drama from Scorsese/DiCaprio and drop a nice 35%. The likelier chance is that “Shutter” will meet in the middle somewhere and drop around 47% to $22 million. An even more interesting question to me is, are audiences liking it? The reviews are overall solid, at 67% Fresh according to Rotten Tomatoes, but are audiences being thrilled, or is the flick getting ‘ok’ word of mouth? Either way, “Shutter Island” is on course to easily cross $100 million domestically by the end of its run.
Look out for “Avatar” again this weekend. Who’s getting tired of hearing that?? Not me… The James Cameron spectacle gets to be the first film in history to crash through the $700 million mark domestically as of this coming weekend. The crazy part is, unless some crazy force of nature comes into play, the movie will still end up in the top 5 this weekend, if not the top 4. What could come into play this week is the fact that it’ll be losing a huge amount of its 3D screens as “Alice in Wonderland” takes over next weekend. Will last minute viewers and fanboys needing one last ride take advantage this weekend?? Not sure. Let’s just stick with its current decline trend. Look for the blue-man group to drop another 32% to about $11 million for $704 million in the bag. Who woulda thought???!
Percy Jackson and his Olympians held decently last weekend after the huge drop-off from V-Day weekend. Even still, a 51% drop is not the norm for a kid-flick, especially one that seems to be satisfying, while not blowing away, its intended audience. Look for a much healthier 38% drop to $9.4 million for a grand total of $70 million to date.
Do we still need to talk about “Valentine’s Day”? In its third weekend, expect the marketing gimmick rom-com to drop another hefty 60% to $6.7 million for the weekend. The movie will just barely cross $100 million in the weeks to come, and all twenty actors (or whatever it is) that are in this thing for ten minutes will get to add a $100 million grosser to their resume.
Ah, “The Wolfman.” Well, the expensive “Benicio” flick didn’t open to be the flop everyone anticipated. But it’s sure dropping like it’s hot, almost as much as “Valentine’s Day” did last weekend. I want to give it a slimmer 50% drop this weekend, but I predict a 59% is more likely (if not more). Universal Pictures will only salvage another $4 million this weekend, for roughly $57 million total.
That’s it for this week’s predictions. Check back Saturday for a Friday estimates’ update.
And don’t forget to check out the latest reviews at walkingtaco.com!
-MJV & the Movies
