Fearless Forecast: 'Leatherheads' By a Nose

In terms of box office, I'm not expecting great things out of Leatherheads, the heavily-marketed George Clooney period comedy about the beginnings of pro football.

Point in fact: As much as George Clooney is a mega-watt star in terms of recognition, his movies don't usually make a lot of money. The Ocean's franchise has done very well and his Oscar-nominated films have been modest successes, but I think the only standalone $100 million George Clooney movie is The Perfect Storm, unless you're counting Batman and Robin. He's not, so you shouldn't.

Leatherheads should still win the weekend, his first non-Ocean's venture to do so in eight years, but I think it will be a close duel with the family-friendly Nim's Island. The Jodie Foster-Abigail Breslin-Gerard Butler movie will do well on its premise alone, but it has been a surprisingly lackluster season for kid movies, so don't expect this one to set the box office ablaze, either.

The only other notable new releases are The Ruins (young adult horror: Blah) and the Martin Scorsese-directed Rolling Stones concert film, Shine a Light. Both should figure into the top ten, but won't be major players.

The Top Five:

1 - Leatherheads ($16 million)
2 - Nim's Island ($15.2 million)
3 - 21 ($14 million)
4 - Horton Hears a Who ($10 million)
5 - The Ruins ($8 million)

Comments

[Anonymous]

As a sports fan and a sports movie fan, I'm kinda scratching my head with this one. It has been over a month since the Super Bowl, so these are the dark times as far as anyone even mildly interested in the sport is concerned.

The Cherry Trees are blossoming and that can only mean one thing: Baseball is here, and people are gearing up for Summer.

Leatherheads then can only be two things: So good, that it will not need concurrent interest in football to help carry it. But if this were true, why not release it in the Summer or awards season?

The other alternative is that it is really has nothing terribly interesting going for it, and the studio is just tossing it out at a safe time so they can market it on DVD come August when the world actually cares about the sport it's glorifying.

Why does this feel like it could be an ESPN movie of the week?

[The Big Picture]

Well, as my review would indicate, it's closer to your second option than the first.

http://www.bigpictureradio.com/leatherheads.htm