FINAL WEEKEND TRACKING: 'Iron Man' Targets $43M-$46M; 'Speed Racer' May Ride Family Crowd to $30M, Edging 'What Happens in Vegas'!
by Steve Mason
Iron Man (Paramount) will almost certainly comfortably win a second consecutive weekend at the box office as Speed Racer (Warner Bros.) struggles to reach $30 million. I have not been able to find a studio exec who believes that the Wachowski Brothers's adaptation of the late '60s anime cartoon classic will be able to outrun its bad industry tracking and generally negative reviews (only 29 percent Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes as of Wednesday night). A source just filled me in on the latest tracking, and Awareness for Speed Racer is fine at 90 percent, but Definite Interest is hovering around 30 percent and its First Choice score is stuck at 16 percent.
That puts Speed behind Fox's What Happens in Vegas which is at 18 percent. In fact, just 19 percent of young males name Speed Racer as their First Choice this weekend, and the Ashton Kutcher/Cameron Diaz comedy is a close second in that demo with 16 percent.
One well-placed exec at a competing studio pointed out something that should be especially disturbing to Warner Bros. When moviegoers were asked about their First Choice from a list of films, including titles already in release, those scheduled to open Friday and ones that are due through May 30, only 5 percent of respondents named Speed Racer. Seven movies scored better, including Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at 27 percent, Iron Man at 23 percent and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian at 14 percent. Even last month's Baby Mama has a stronger number with 7 percent.
The second weekend of May was described to me as a "death slot" on the release schedule. Back in 2006, Warner Bros. flopped with Poseidon, which opened with only $22.1 million on this same weekend despite a reported $160 million budget. The good news for Warner Bros. is that Speed Racer has been made for something closer to $100 million. That bad news is that, as I reported earlier this week, Paramount has been watching Speed Racer tracking closely. They saw that "there was blood in the water," and they ramped up spending on ad buys for Iron Man. That should drive the second weekend gross for the first Marvel Studios film to $43 million-$46 million, representing a respectable drop in the 53 percent-56 percent range.
The other major wide release opening this Friday is the PG-13-rated Vegas. With Kutcher and Diaz on the marquee, it has excellent female appeal. Definite Interest with Females Under 25 is at 48 percent and First Choice with young females is 20 percent. Vegas should reach something in the $20 million-$23 million range, good for third place behind the family-oriented Speed Racer.
Finally, as I detailed in a story I titled A Mamet Miscalculation, Sony Classics is rolling out Redbelt on 1,000 screens, and it would have been far better served by a traditional platform release on the arthouse circuit. Instead, the Chiwetel Ejiofor extreme fighting/martial arts drama is unlikely to top $3 million.
FINAL BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS FOR MAY 9-11
1. Iron Man (Paramount) — $45 million
2. Speed Racer (Warner Bros.) — $30 million
3. What Happens in Vegas (20th Century Fox) — $21 million
4. Made of Honor (Sony) — $8.5 million
5. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Universal) — $3.5 million
6. Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo (Warner Bros.) — $3.4 million
7. Redbelt (Sony Classics) — $2.7 million
8. The Forbidden Kingdom (Lionsgate) — $2.1 million
9. Nim's Island (20th Century Fox) — $1.5 million
10. Prom Night (Sony) — $1.2 million
i think you forgot Baby Mama in 5th place. Speed Racer could do 40M, maybe?
Posted by: aadams | May 08, 2008 at 10:10 PM