Weekend Estimates: Chronicle and Woman in Black Vie for SuperBowl Honors

February 5, 2012

The industry's healthy start to 2012 will continue this weekend thanks to two more good opening weekends. Chronicle is currently favorite to win the weekend, with Fox predicting a $22 million opening. CBS Films is pegging The Woman in Black at $21 million (a record for the fledgling studio). Both figures are predicated on historical models for SuperBowl Sunday, which can be a difficult day to predict, so the final order between the two could yet switch, although Chronicle is heavily favored to win at this point. Overall box office will be up about 35% from last year, although that reflects the very weak start to 2011. This weekend looks as though it will be about average for a SuperBowl weekend overall.

The weekend's other wide opener, Big Miracle will do OK business with $8.5 million according to Universal. That will put it in 4th place behind The Grey, which is going to fall about 50% from its opening weekend.

In limited release, W.E. will open with around $45,000 in four theaters: a decent, if not particularly outstanding start. An Inconsistent Truth is heading for a second weekend of around $12,300 in a single theater, and Oscar-nominee A Separation will pick up $325,000 or so from 40 theaters, passing $1 million in total in the process.

The main contenders for a Best Picture Oscar will have another weekend with fairly modest returns. The Descendants, The Artist and Hugo will all average around $2,000 - $2,500 per theater, while War Horse is fading fast, and will pick up only $800 per theater this weekend, based on Disney's figures. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close sits in the middle of this particular pack with an average around $1,600. None of those figures suggest that further expansion is warranted for any of the films, although Weinstein continues to add theaters steadily for The Artist.

- Weekend Estimates
- Friday Estimates
- Saturday Estimates
- Sunday Projections

Bruce Nash

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Hugo, The Descendants, The Woman in Black, War Horse, The Grey, Big Miracle, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Chronicle, W.E., Jodaeiye Nader az Simin, The Artist, An Inconsistent Truth