Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. There’s no point in mincing words this time, for there’s only one movie opening in wide release and it’s sure to be a big one. In fact, “Iron Man 3” may gross more this weekend than the GDP of several African nations. How high will the movie go? Nobody knows, really, although hitting the $207.4m record of last summer’s “The Avengers” seems unlikely. Here’s how I see it: When you factor in night-before-opening preview shows, “Iron Man 2” improved on “Iron Man” by 25.5% ($128.1m vs. $102.1m). “Iron Man 3” should have no problem surging by a comparable figure, what with the success of “The Avengers” and the additional surcharge for 3-D (which neither prior “Iron Man” film carried). So that would bring “Iron Man 3” to $160.8 million. I could be dead on, I could be way off, but there’s no sense in trying to scientifically determine something that’s up to the Marvel Gods. I’m just throwing out a number like everyone else.
My prediction of what the full top 10 will look like:
- “Iron Man 3” … $160.8m
- “Pain & Gain” … $8.5m -58.0%
- “Oblivion” … $8.0m -55.1%
- “42” … $6.3m -40.9%
- “The Croods” … $4.0m -40.5%
- “The Big Wedding” … $3.8m -49.9%
- “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” … $1.9m -48.7%
- “Mud” … $1.9m -14.2%
- “The Place Beyond the Pines” … $1.5m -45.0%
- “Scary Movie 5” … $1.5m -56.3%