August 3-5 Predictions: Heffley Vs. Hauser

1. The Dark Knight Rises - $33.6m (-45.9%)
2. Total Recall - $23m (~$6,765 PTA)
3. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Dog Days - $19.5m (~$6,290 PTA)
4. Ice Age: Continental Drift - $7.4m (-44.5%)
5. The Watch - $6.4m (-49.8%)
6. Step Up: Revolution - $5.6m (-52.3%)
7. Ted - 4.9m (-33.4%)
8. The Amazing Spider-Man - 4.3m (-35.8%)
9. Brave - 2.5m (-41.9%)
10. Magic Mike - 1.5m (-42.7%)





After a slow weekend outside of The Dark Knight Rises, two new openers could get into the 20s range for the weekend. These two films are the Total Recall remake with Colin Farrell and the next installment of the Wimpy Kid series. Still, neither one will be able to overtake the bat.

First up, we have the remake of Total Recall, based off the 1990 hit with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film stars Farrell, as well as Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsdale, and Bryan Cranston. The film was bumped down to a PG-13 rating, rather than the original's R rating, but scaled up to a big budget of as much as 200m. It may save face internationally, but there's not much hope for it to break out here. Internet buzz is not as high as it should be, and it's only at #5 on The Fandango Top 5 as of Wednesday. At least that should prevent a complete failure, but it's going to need more steam to be "successful." Expect a number from the mid to low 20s. This will probably end up like John Carter & Battleship, where the film is a domestic flop, but it saves some face overseas. Also, could Spider-Man benefit from fudging/double features? Possibly.

Next up is Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, the third installment of the Wimpy Kid saga, and the first to be released during the summer. (It's actually based on the 4th book. They just skipped over The Last Straw, the third book in the series.) The first two installments have consistently performed in the low 20s, but failed to get past a 3x multiplier. Expect the same for this installment, but perhaps a smaller opening, potentially in the high teens. However, family films like Wimpy Kid typically have better weekdays over the summer, so that should help legs a little bit. Also, the new family film may affect Ice Age 4 and Brave a little bit, so don't expect the same drops it had last weekend.

Of course, we have The Dark Knight Rises, likely to win its third consecutive weekend a la Inception and The Dark Knight. Weekdays are already getting close to passing the -50% threshold, and should make a sub 50% drop very likely, let alone doable. I'm guessing that it drops to 7m today and slightly decreases tommorow. If it increases at least 45% on Friday, it could get to as high as 35m for the weekend.

Coming Soon: Spaghetti's Fall Movie Preview!

EDIT: Accuracy was 89.13%. Damn you, Wimpy Kid.