Bogus Box-Office Bumblings

So far this summer the money aspect of film has been...disappointing.

Iron Man 2 shattered no records.
Robin Hood didn't have any heroics.
Shrek 4 dropped steeply from the last film.
And now, Sex in the City 2 and Prince of Persia both underperformed.

What's in store for June? Can the picture business bounce back? Let's take a look.

June 4

Marmaduke
Predicted Opening Weekend: $20-$30 mil.
Predicted Total Gross: $80-$90 mil.

It looks awful, but this sort of thing has done well lately. Alvin & the Chipmunks, G-Force and Beverly Hills Chihuaha are recent examples of this. Moving on.

Killers
Predicted Opening Weekend: $20-$25 mil
Predicted Total Gross: $60-75 mil

This could suffer, due to the recent Bounty Hunter which is in similar territory, as well as the later-in-the-month appearance of Knight & Day. It will probably find modest success, with breakout potential for much more, largely based on Ashton Kutcher's bankabillity with the younger crowd.

Get him to the Greek
Predicted Opening Weekend: $20-$25 mil
Predicted Total Gross: $70-$90 mil

Judd Apatow is an interesting animal from a box office perspective. He's topped $100 million a few times, but most of his stuff is more mid-range, and he had 1 bomb (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story). This will probably do fairly well.

Splice
Predicted Opening Weekend: $12-$14 mil
Predicted Total Gross: $35-$40 mil

Foreign Horror does better with critics than American stuff, but audiences and critics rarely line-up. I'm predicting solid returns, but on such a busy weekend, something's gotta bomb, and it may well be Splice.

Note: As stated earlier, something's gotta bomb. I predict that at least one of my predictions is vastly overstating actual business, and something will be a surprise failure on this weekend.

Come back next week for more.