While most of America will be spending the weekend debating which group of dudes kicked and ran with a ball better, we horror/film buffs will be watching another showdown, with the head-to-head horror weekend box office of RINGS vs SPLIT.
Now I know horror is the outcast and shouldn't be pitted against each other, horror should help horror, as they say (they don't say that), but the hell with all that holding hands in a garden of butterflies, or whatever, let's see who comes out on bloody top this weekend!
I get really into box office by the way. Not sure why.
Anyhow, it has been 12 years since a film has been released in THE RING cinematic universe (not that that's a thing, at least not yet), but Dreamworks is hoping that won't matter as the new RINGS film is set to go head-to-head will the seemingly unbreakable (natch) hold-over SPLIT.
Current projections have both flicks at a conservative $13 million – $14 million. Paramount is actually being even MORE conservative than that, suggesting RINGS will only gather up $10 million – $12 million bucks.
THE RING debuted back in October of 2002 will $15 million. But that was October. And THE RING was, of course, a horror flick, so let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Side note: THE RING jumped up to $18 million the next two weeks, a rarity for horror films. THE RING TWO then debuted in March of 2005 with $35 million, but plummeted sharply downward after that (it was a BAD, BAD movie after all).
The Super Bowl is, of course, a pretty huge event and movie-going often drops like a mother on game day. But that stupid, dumbass Hannah Montana concert movie made $31.1 million over the Super Bowl weekend back in 2008, so that means — jacksh*t for our match-up. Really, when does Miley fu*king Cyrus mean ANYTHING of relevance to this site. But, seriously, it just goes to show – you never know.
That said I would place my bets on SPLIT winning the weekend, yet again. Not by much mind you. But winning the weekend all together. RINGS, I have a feeling, will go the way of 'old school film gets new sequel' BLAIR WITCH and end up with a bit more or less than Paramount's projected $10 million. Weak projection? Nah. I mean, like RINGS will make $9.8 million – $10.2 million. That's a bit more on the nose for ya.
Here is my guess:
1. SPLIT: 13.5 million
2. RINGS: 9.8 million
We'll see sooner than later if I'm right as RINGS opens tonight in theaters across the country.