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Thursday
08Jan2009

Fearless Forecast - 'Bride Wars' Beats Up Clint

DateThursday, January 8, 2009 at 10:16AM
After a very shaky 12 months, 20th Century Fox is poised to have a breakout couple of months. It all started with Marley & Me, the studio's biggest hit in quite a while, and it could be succeeded at number one this weekend by Bride Wars. That's the new Kate Hudson-Anne Hathaway comedy that, despite a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, will still attract tons of female moviegoers.

I actually think it will do better than a lot of prognosticators, having sat through a screening of the film asking aloud what everyone was laughing at. $20 million seems to be the ballpark figure, but I'm going to go a little higher than that.

Fox could score the top two spots this weekend, with Marley finishing in second place, but I think Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, which is finally expanding to a wide release, is going to be a huge player this weekend. I don't remember if we've had a movie like this in a few years, but Torino has only played in 84 theaters over the past few weeks and has already made $10 million. That's an unbelievable amount of money given the circumstances. Milk has only made $17 million, and it's in at least three times as many houses, and has been out a month longer. I expect Gran Torino to have a very strong three days.

The other new release of note is The Unborn, which is being aggressively marketed by Universal/Focus. If this had been the only creepy kid horror movie in the past couple of years, it might open very well. But audiences have seen this a bunch lately, so while it will still open in the top five, it's likely a one-and-done scenario.

The Top Five:
1 - Bride Wars - $23 million
2 - Gran Torino - $17 million
3 - Marley & Me - $14.5 million
4 - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - $12 million
5 - The Unborn - $11.5 million

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AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | Comment2 Comments |

Reader Comments (2)

Forget that, i'm going to see The Reader for the second time.

Thursday, January 8, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterlara Petersen

Gran Torino is finally in my area!

Thursday, January 8, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterAllan

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