Kim Hollis Extrapolates Weekend Estimates
Using Friday's Data
Saturday, August 11, 2001
Although American Pie 2 won't be the fourth consecutive film to open over $50 million, its $16.28 million take on Friday does help us continue to debunk several box-office myths. Not only will the comedy have the second-highest August debut ever, proving release date is not prohibitive, but it also provides more evidence that an R rating will not restrict the opening of any highly-anticipated film.
The original American Pie had an internal weekend multiplier of 2.79. Comparing the sequel to other teen genre films and comedies with larger openings such as Scary Movie (2.64), Rush Hour 2 (2.92), Big Daddy (2.86) and Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me (2.72), I'm going to go with a similar number for American Pie 2 and estimate a Friday-to-Sunday internal multiplier of 2.75, which extrapolates to a weekend total of $44.8 million.
Rush Hour 2's $10.58 million is a 54% drop from last Friday. The Friday-to-Friday drop for movies such as this one generally exceeds the weekend-to-weekend total number by eight to 12%. Since Rush Hour 2 has had such spectacular word-of-mouth, I'm going with the optimistic estimate of $33.1 million for its second weekend. The film crossed the $100 million mark on Thursday and looks to be a lock for $200 million, and possibly the second- or third-highest grossing film of the year by the time it's all said and done.
Opening on a mere 1,678 screens was The Others, which surprised most everyone, other than Box Office Prophets' own Reagen Sulewski, with its $4.81 million Friday total. Supernatural-themed horror films tend to have solid weekend multipliers, and based on the solid reviews and word-of-mouth this film boasts, I would expect that trend to hold true here as well. The Others should adhere to the internal multipliers of films such as The Sixth Sense (3.33), Bless the Child (3.14), Stigmata (2.78) and House on Haunted Hill (2.94), which gives us an approximate weekend multiplier of 3.0, and a weekend total of $14.4 million.
The 43% drop from last Friday for The Princess Diaries is somewhat disappointing for a family-oriented film, and tracks almost exactly to Cats & Dogs' second Friday drop. That film wound up with a 45% drop overall in its second weekend, but I would expect The Princess Diaries' multiplier to be slightly stronger based on its strong CinemaScores, and it could pull in a total of $13.7 million to put it over the $50 million mark after two weekends.
Word-of-mouth has clearly been deadly for Planet of the Apes. It dropped 54% Friday-to-Friday, and will likely sit just short of $150 million total after a weekend take of $13.2 million. The film that started the streak of consecutive $50 million openings, Jurassic Park III, settled into normal trending for a film with a large opening with a 43% Friday-to-Friday drop. It pulled in $2.06 million on Friday and looks to be at around the $160 million mark at the end of the weekend. The chances for either of these two movies to achieve the vaunted $200 million mark are highly unlikely.
Osmosis Jones has to be nothing short of a disappointment for Warner Bros, especially considering the tremendous marketing push the film has received in the past two weeks. Comparing Osmosis Jones to other live-action/animated films, as well as other movies with gross-out appeal such as Monkeybone (3.47), Rocky & Bullwinkle (3.20), See Spot Run (4.23), Joe Dirt (2.60) and The Animal (3.27), we find that its multiplier could either be surprisingly good or quite poor. We'll split the difference and estimate a multiplier of 3.3 and a weekend total of $6.1 million for Osmosis Jones.
America's Sweethearts may not hit the $100 million mark. It dropped another 42% from last Friday's totals, and will likely grab another $4.7 million this weekend to push it past $80 million. Legally Blonde is following right behind that number and dropped 35% for a Friday take of $1.22 million. It should pull in another $3.8 million for the weekend for a cume of just under $80 million.
Battling for tenth place for the weekend will be The Score and Original Sin. The Score dropped 33%, while Original Sin fell a dismal 56%. Based on these drops, it does appear that the former will win out the weekend, while Original Sin simply falls away into oblivion.
|
Friday-to-Friday Drop-Offs
|
Film |
Fri-Fri Depreciation |
Estimated Weekend Depreciation |
| Rush Hour 2 | 54% | 50% |
| Princess Diaries | 43% | 40% |
| Planet of the Apes | 54% | 52% |
| Jurassic Park 3 | 43% | 43% |
| America's Sweethearts | 42% | 40% |
| Legally Blonde | 35% | 35% |
| The Score | 33% | 32% |
| Original Sin | 56% | 55% |
|
Extrapolated Estimates for the Top Ten
|
Projected
Rank |
Film |
Estimated Gross ($) |
| 1 | American Pie 2 | 44.8 |
| 2 | Rush Hour 2 | 33.1 |
| 3 | The Others | 14.4 |
| 4 | The Princess Diaries | 13.7 |
| 5 | Planet of the Apes | 13.2 |
| 6 | Jurassic Park 3 | 6.9 |
| 7 | Osmosis Jones | 6.1 |
| 8 | America's Sweethearts | 4.7 |
| 9 | Legally Blonde | 3.8 |
| 10 | The Score | 3.3 |
View other columns by Kim Hollis
