The No. 2 spot could be won by any of three films. I anticipate that Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? (Lionsgate) will earn about $11 million-$12 million, so the question is, "Can either The Comebacks (20th Century Fox) or Rendition (New Line) manage to surpass that weekend gross?" Based on the sheer number of screens, 2,800, it seems that Fox's sports spoof has the best chance, but I'm going to place a small bet on Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal. I say Rendition ekes out a narrow win over Why Did I Get Married? and that The Comebacks falls a bit flat with less than $10 million.

Other new wide releases include Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone (Miramax), which opens on just over 1,700 screens and Things We Lost in the Fire (Dremworks/Paramount) and Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour (Freestyle Releasing) both on 1,100 screens or so. Let's start with the easy one. Nobody has seen Sarah Landon, but I'm hearing that it's awful and I'll be stunned if it gets to $1 million for the three-day.

Gone Baby Gone and Things We Lost are competing for that intelligent, grown-up, awards-savvy audience, and it's a very crowded playing field. With holdovers Michael Clayton (Warner Bros.) and We Own the Night (Sony), along with the expanding Into the Wild (Paramount Vantage), it won't be easy for the Affleck-directed crime saga and the Halle Berry-Benicio Del Toro drama to break through. I'm calling for just over $7 million for Gone Baby Gone and about $3 million for Things We Lost.

Final Predictions for Oct. 19-21:
1. 30 Days of Night — $20 million
2. Rendition — $11.5 million
3. Why Did I Get Married? — $11.1 million
4. The Comebacks — $9.5 million
5. The Game Plan — $7.5 million
6. Gone Baby Gone — $7.1 million
7. Michael Clayton — $6.8 million
8. We Own the Night — $5.7 million
9. The Heartbreak Kid — $4.3 million
10. Elizabeth: The Golden Age — $3.5 million
* Things We Lost in the Fire — $3 million
* The Ten Commandments — $650,000
* Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour — $600,000