Weekend Forecast: February 21 – 23

February 21, 2003

There are four new entrants into the box office race this weekend, but don’t expect any of the to challenge Daredevil for the top spot. Even a 50% drop would leave DD with a box office of more than $20 million. With no real competition that should be enough to win.

The widest opening this weekend is for the frat comedy Old School starring Will Farrell, Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn. None of who are big box office draws. Better than expected reviews could help out, although the target audience for these movies generally don’t read reviews. Expect similar numbers to other comedies of a similar maturity level. Almost 2,700 theatres and a predicted $6,500 per theatre for a total of $17.5 million.

Battling for third will be How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Dark Blue with Kurt Russell. Kurt hasn’t stared in a big hit since Stargate, and with an ad campaign that wasn’t aggressive enough and less than 2,200 theatres he’ll have to wait even longer. Dark Blue will lose a close race for 3rd with both movies getting between $11 and $12 million.

Chicago is still picking up theatres, but will start to lose box office, but slowly for the next couple of weeks. $10 million and 5th place is reasonably safe bet.

The Life of David Gale at 2,000 theatres and Gods and Generals at 1,500 theatres are the only other movies opening wide this weekend. But with such low theatre counts and generally awful reviews they will not factor in the top 5. In fact, Gods and Generals might not factor in the top 10.

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Filed under: Chicago, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Daredevil, Old School, The Life of David Gale, Gods and Generals, Dark Blue