Fearless Forecast - 'High School Musical' Cuts Down 'Saw'

I've seen some pretty stratospheric predictions for High School Musical 3: Senior Year, including one that has the big screen debut of the Disney series raking in $57 million! We're going to back off of that prediction, although it's still going to be a massive, massive hit. Phenomena are pretty hard to track, because you don't know if there's going to be repeat business and how much, and you don't know for certain in this case exactly who will show up, because it's the first time one of these has been in theaters. However, the movie should turn a profit by Saturday and $100 million seems like a very real destination. And that's before we even get to the home video sales for this.Massive, massive hit.That means that for the first time in four years, a Saw movie will not open in first place. Saw V should do around its usual business - believe it or not, there's very little shared audience between Jigsaw and Zac Efron - so while High School Musical won't take any of its crowd away, the Saw fans will just be significantly outnumbered.Left out in all of this is Pride and Glory, a movie that New Line had ready to go this spring, but then the company was restructured and a lot of its movies were unfortunate victims. This one should do OK. Nobody's expecting a huge opening weekend, and they wouldn't be even if this was the only movie in theaters; Edward Norton and Colin Farrell aren't very big draws, and for a crooked cop movie on a crowded weekend, that would be a deciding factor.And Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas is back in theaters this year, in its two-year-old 3-D version. Much like Polar Express, it'll get some diehard business this weekend, although it makes you wonder why Disney released the DVD two months before Halloween if they were going to push the movie back into theaters. Disney shouldn't worry; they've made a killing off this movie, they're the clear winners of the fall so far with Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and they're going to be thrown tons of money for High School Musical.The Top Five:1 - High School Musical 3 ($41 million)
2 - Saw V ($27 million)
3 - Max Payne ($7 million)
4 - Pride and Glory ($6.5 million)
5 - Beverly Hills Chihuahua ($5.8 million) Last week's Fearless Forecast was not a rousing success. We got four of the top five movies right, but W. underperformed and The Secret Life of Bees overperformed our expectations by the same margin, around $3 million. We were also a little high on the total for Max Payne, but we pinned Beverly Hills Chihuahua down by about $300,000.

Box Office - Max Brings the 'Payne'

Max Payne did the job it was supposed to do: It won the weekend box office by a wide margin. But there was a hangover for Payne, like there was for a couple other new releases, because Friday was by far its best performance.According to Box Office Mojo, Payne made just over $7 million on Friday and wound up with a weekend total of $18 million. Not bad, but based on the way weekends normally go, the audience for the Mark Wahlberg video game adaptation slid downhill on Saturday and particularly on Sunday. The political biopic W. also began the weekend in robust fashion, but was crawling to the finish line. Friday's numbers would have led you to believe W. could have made $12 million or more this weekend, but the totals on Saturday and Sunday indicate that there was initial curiosity about this film that has already subsided.In a way, the big winner was Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which most analysts thought would drop below Payne, W. and The Secret Life of Bees, but it found a groove and repeated as the number two film of the weekend.On the independent front, both Happy-Go-Lucky and Rachel Getting Married, movies powered by potential Best Actress performances, were the top two finishers when you consider the ever-important per-screen average. Both films will expand over the next few weeks and positive reviews and building word-of-mouth should help them stay in theaters through the holidays.The Top Five: 1 - Max Payne ($18 million)
2 - Beverly Hills Chihuahua ($11.2 million)
3 - The Secret Life of Bees ($11 million)
4 - W. ($10.5 million)
5 - Eagle Eye ($7.3 million)

Box Office - 'Max Payne' Wins Friday Easily

So far so good for Max Payne, the new video game adaptation starring Mark Wahlberg. On Friday, it easily distanced itself from the pack at the box office, taking in just over $7 million, according to Box Office Mojo. That figures to mean a $20 million debut for Payne, a great number considering its $35 million budget. Oliver Stone's W. finished the day in second place, and appears to be headed towards a $12 - $14 million weekend. Like Max Payne, it has a reasonable budget despite its high profile, so W. will have no problem earning a profit, especially considering Stone's worldwide audience, which generally treats him better than American crowds. The Secret Life of Bees is a slight surprise, taking third place on Friday, with Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Eagle Eye rounding out the day's top five. The week's other new release, Sex Drive, should finish in the $4 million range, which is about what was expected from the teen comedy.Though we'll follow it more extensively next week, there are a rash of major box office bombs in theaters at the moment, with films like How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, The Express, Body of Lies, and City of Ember simply failing to connect with enough people. Only one of those films will make $20 million domestically - Body of Lies - while the others will be stuck around $10 million if they're lucky.

Fearless Forecast - 'Max Payne' to Kick Little Pampered Dogs

I would be highly surprised if Max Payne didn't finish atop the weekend box office chart. Last week, I would've been mildly surprised if Beverly Hills Chihuahua repeated...so I was mildly surprised.What gives Max Payne a real edge this week is that its major new competition is a film about an unpopular President directed by a divisive filmmaker that will only pop up in two-thirds as many theaters. But even with Mark Wahlberg in the starring role and being the film with the best connection to the most active audience of opening weekend moviegoers, I don't expect Max Payne to go through the roof. As for W., the new Oliver Stone film about George W. Bush, I think positive reviews about Josh Brolin and Stone's more favorable portrayal of his subject will bring in a few potential patrons that might have been on the fence. If it were opening in 3,000 theaters instead of 2,000, the numbers would look really good. I still believe, though, that it will do very well on a per-screen basis. It's just not on enough screens to win the weekend.There are two other new releases, The Secret Life of Bees and Sex Drive, and they'll do moderately well given their expectations. To me, the most interesting head-to-head battle is between Body of Lies and Quarantine. If you'll recall, Quarantine made more than the DiCaprio-Crowe film last weekend, and it leads Body of Lies in total box office to this point. Can a low-budget horror flick really earn more than two of Hollywood's biggest names over the long haul?The Top Five: 1 - Max Payne ($21 million)
2 - W. ($13 million)
3 - Beverly Hills Chihuahua ($11.5 million)
4 - The Secret Life of Bees ($8 million)
5 - Body of Lies ($6.5 million)

Box Office - 'Chihuahua' Wins Again, 'Body of Lies' Tanks

How 'bout that Body of Lies? Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Ridley Scott...sounds like it's up your alley, right? You couldn't prove that looking at the box office numbers, as the new espionage thriller opened with an uninspiring $13 million, only good enough for third place, according to weekend estimates released by Box Office Mojo. Beverly Hills Chihuahua - which, it should be pointed out, does not have an overt political message - finished in first place again, taking in another $17 million, and the new horror movie Quarantine leapfrogged Body of Lies for second place. Quarantine was really the only new release to get much traction, with The Express finishing in sixth place and City of Ember debuting at number ten.Instead, it was the movies that had been in theaters at least a week that attracted crowds, with only one carryover in the top 15 losing more than half of its attendance numbers from the previous weekend.I would guess that Quarantine and Lies shared a fair percentage of the same audience, so maybe that's a contributing factor to the disappointing debut for the Leo-Crowe flick. The movie faces a huge uphill battle to turn a profit; it might make $40 million domestically against a $70 million budget. But the news is even worse for City of Ember, a $40 million fantasy that earned less than 10% of its budget back this weekend. That film is on pace for a $15 million domestic run, which will make the international receipts much more important.The Top Five:1 - Beverly Hills Chihuahua ($17.5 million)
2 - Quarantine ($14.2 million)
3 - Body of Lies ($13.1 million)
4 - Eagle Eye ($11 million)
5 - Nick and Norah ($6.5 million)