This weekend is shaping up to be a rather quiet one at the box office, with two new releases, The Wild Robot and Megalopolis, coming out that no one thinks are going to set the world on fire. Indeed, while Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was a smash hit early this month, the rest of September had been loaded with bomb after bomb, with Transformers One having an especially underwhelming opening last weekend, where it lost to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in its third week.
Box office forecasters expect The Wild Robot to make about $25 million this weekend and take the top spot. But, I gotta say, I’m not so sure. The Wild Robot is a terrific movie, and I fully agree with our man Steve Seigh’s rave review (read it here). But Paramount and Dreamworks made a huge mistake scheduling two robot-driven animated movies so close together, and Wild Robot and Transformers One will cannibalize each other’s audience. As such, I’m going to go out on a limb and predict The Wild Robot will only open with about $14 million and be beaten by Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which I think will once again take the top spot with $15 million.
Transformers One should take third place with about $11 million, although given the A CinemaScore, it could rally and do a bit better. Speak No Evil should hit fourth place with about $3 million, while Megalopolis will be lucky to hit fifth place with $2 million, as I truly think this is going to be the biggest box office disaster of the year. That’s a bummer, as I wanted to like Coppola’s passion project (suffice to say I didn’t) and a terrible note to end an otherwise dazzling career on – although then again, who knows, he might make another movie, and maybe it’ll be a masterpiece.
Here are my predictions:
As bad as this weekend is shaping up, the release of Joker: Folie a Deux should kick the box office into high gear next weekend.
Do you agree with my predictions? Let me know in the comments!