This one, The Call, is a thriller/suspense movie. MPAA rating is R.
Last week Colin Farrell has taught me how to assess an actor's star power: it was (and always is) a binary thing. I had thought he had had some left, it turned out that he didn't. His Dead Man Down bombed.
Now I'm trying to figure out what lesson Halle Berry gives me. Her pulling potential is the first of two factors that can determine a box office of this movie.
In all her movies, she looked great. But also, most of her films were ensemble pieces: she was just one piece of puzzle. But very rarely she was a truly lead character: in Gothika she played with Robert Downey Jr., in Catwoman she played with a reputational's ghost of Batman movies, in Perfect Stranger she played with Bruce Willis. This time she has noone to help/interfere. So, this is kind of her debut.
Luckily, the premise of the movie is strong: a police call center operator gets an emergency call from kidnapped girl and tries to help her escape. After some searching in my head, I have found similar movie (another genre though): Unstoppable. In both of these, we knew that it would end well, but we wanted to see exactly how it would turn out. In Unstoppable we witnessed attempts of stopping train, in The Call we witness attempts of escaping from ruthless kidnapper.
The second factor in my determining The Call's box office is historic numbers of thrillers. There are clearly three groups: one under 10M field, second in 10-17M brackets, and third in over 20M field. Thanks to strong premise and overall likeness of Ms. Berry, I think the first one is totally excluded. I think the third one is also out of question: due to Ms. Berry "debut" and no existing star power attached to an actor playing kidnapper (only Berry is on the poster). As to exact number per theater, I think it will be a bit smaller than Unstoppable's was and a bit higher than average number for thriller genre.
Shots:
The movie went for 17,12 mln. (2507 theaters, $6828 per theater)
I go for 17,05 mln. (2750 theaters, $6200 per theater)
Laremy Legel from RopeOfSilicon goes for 13,8 mln.
Ray Subers from BoxOfficeMojo goes for 12,7 mln.
C.S. Strowbridge from The Numbers goes for 12 mln.
BoxOffice staff go for 11,7 mln.
Movie Critic Assasins from BreitBart go for 9,8 mln.
HSX go for 9 mln.
Gitesh Pandya from BoxOfficeGuru goes for 8 mln.
Bill Bonfanti from FilmGo goes for 7,5 mln.
Damon Houx from ScreenCrave goes for 7,5 mln.
Perri Nemiroff from Shockya goes for 7 mln.
Examiner didn't release numbers for any March opening.
This one, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, is a comedy movie. MPAA rating is PG-13.
Like yin&yang, shooting this prediction is easy and hard at the same time.
It is easy in terms of number of theaters. Cinema managers will want to get next flow of money, similar to one they got from Identity Thief (it opened in 3100 theaters). And after looking at Warner Bros.' way of supplying their comedies in last 4 years, it becomes clear that the magical number is 3000. They go higher if movie is surefire hit (The Hangover II, Sex and the City II) or it has very strong name written on the poster (Dark Shadows with Johnny Depp). Are Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey such strong names?
But shooting at dollar amount per theater is crazy hard. PG-13 comedies are often perfect date movies: light, occasionally funny, washed off of sex references and dirty language. This one seems similar enough, but there is one problem: this spot is currently occupied by Oz the Great and Powerful.
I thought for a bit that Steve Carrell's comic persona could get in a way. He always played a strict guy. Sometimes he was after fame (Bruce Almighty), sometimes he was after profession recognition (Get Smart), sometimes it was simply love (Due Date, Crazy, Stupid, Love). With these movies, Mr. Carrell has proved his capability of getting $7k+ on an opening weekend. This time, as Burt Wonderstone, he goes again for profession recognition as well as his own life's passion for magic, magic tricks and making people having fun time through them. So, he stays within his persona. And there is no reason to lower a number of dollars per theater for this movie.
Shots:
Damon Houx from ScreenCrave goes for 22 mln.
I go for 21 mln. (3000 theaters, $7000 per theater)
Laremy Legel from RopeOfSilicon goes for 20,5 mln.
Perri Nemiroff from Shockya goes for 20 mln.
Gitesh Pandya from BoxO fficeGuru goes for 19 mln.
HSX go for 18 mln.
Ray Subers from BoxOfficeMojo goes for 18 mln.
Bill Bonfanti from FilmGo goes for 16 mln.
C.S. Strowbridge from The Numbers goes for 15 mln.
Movie Critic Assasins from BreitBart go for 14 mln.
BoxOffice staff go for 12,8 mln.
The movie went for 10,3 mln. (3160 theaters, $3221 per theater)
Examiner didn't release numbers for any March opening.
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