Fearless Forecast: 'New Moon' Eyes $100 Million

If you skip to the bottom of this article to look at our ranked top five for this weekend, you'll notice some huge numbers. Just five weeks ago, for example, the top five films grossed about $76 million. This weekend, one movie will outperform all of those, and the rest of the top five might make another $65 million or more. Of course, leading the charge is The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and in terms of performance, I'm less interested in the opening weekend than the second weekend: How well will it hold? Last year's Twilight shed over 60% of its opening weekend crowd, but the buzz surrounding the series has certainly grown since then. I doubt that 60% drop will be repeated this year, although even if it is, the second weekend would nearly do $40 million...because New Moon will be right at the $100 million mark this weekend. With such a huge number - and, for the record, what I believe would be the second largest three-day weekend jaunt of the year - it's really hard to be accurate, because a 10% push either way, though common, is $10 million in this case. But I know it will perform better than Twilight, which did $70 million in about 700 fewer theaters, I know sequels to popular movies almost always open better than their predecessors, and I know that this film has been promoted in one form or another since Twilight debuted. So $100 million is a nice round number, and it could go a little higher or several million below. Elsewhere this weekend, there are four or five other movies poised to make good coin, beginning with 2012. It should lose about 50% of its audience or more, but a $30 million estimate seems about right. New releases The Blind Side and Planet 51 will do moderate business, but not enough to scare anybody. And then there's Precious, the Oscar hopeful that shrewdly positioned itself ahead of the December flood of Best Picture possibilities, and is not only benefiting on that front but financially, as well. Expanding a little more this weekend, Precious should make about another $10 million, putting it over $20 million so far. The Top Five:
1 - New Moon ($100 million)
2 - 2012 ($32 million)
3 - The Blind Side ($14 million)
4 - Planet 51 ($12 million)
5 - Christmas Carol ($11.5 million)