At this point it looks like Cloudy 2 should easily be the first to reach the checkered flag. The first Cloudy, which also opened on the third weekend of September, grossed $30 million its opening weekend on its way to a respectable $124 million total domestic gross. It has been over a month since Planes flew into theaters, so Cloudy 2 definitely won't have much competition. The big question is whether family audiences have forgotten how much they've already spent this year on animated sequels/prequels/spin-offs. But Sony's well executed marketing campaign reminds us how fun the first film was while also introducing the (mostly) adorable food-imals, which should help it capitalize on the goodwill left over from the first film. With four years of ticket price inflation as icing on the cake, Cloudy 2 has a chance at scoring the highest grossing September opening of all time, though a gross between $35 and $40 million is most likely.
Ron Howard's Rush earned an decent $200,000 last weekend from only five theaters. With rave reviews coming out of Toronto and its limited opening, this weekend could be a big win for Formula 1 fans. The biggest challenge for the film is genre limitations. The sports drama genre has produced some hits, including seven with grosses over $100 million. However, it is crucial to look at which sports are scoring big at the box office. Of the top fifteen films in the genre, seven are about boxing, three football, three baseball, and one horse racing. Car racing has scored some major hits itself outside of the sports drama genre, but those are mostly constrained to the Cars and The Fast and the Furious franchises. What does this mean for Rush? For a sports drama film to be successful it must court more than just the fans of the specific sport. The filmmaker must bring stories and characters that will resonate with general audiences as well. I think Howard has achieved that, which should help Rush bring in $20 million this weekend.
Coming out of blockbuster season, there haven't been many romantic comedies in national release. The most recent is probably The Big Wedding which opened with $7 million back in April and ended its domestic run with $21 million. Baggage Claim looks to follow previous comedies Think Like a Man and Jumping the Broom, two comedies with predominantly black casts that turned very low budgets ($12 and $6.6 million) into box office wins ($91 and $37 million). Baggage will probably end up above Jumping's $15 million opening weekend, but nowhere near Think's $33 million.
While Don Jon is also technically a romantic comedy, its target audience seems a little harder to pin down than Baggage's. Some audiences will definitely be turned off by the porn angle, though those who enjoyed JGL's more actiony roles may be turned off by the romantic comedy label. However, there are always audiences looking for smart, funny, original films, and JGL's directorial debut seems to fit the bill. I expect it to gross around $15 million, which would be a respectable opening. More importantly, Don Jon needs to get good word-of-mouth coming out of its opening weekend if it hopes to hold well while the box office continues focusing on more adult fare.
Metallica brings us a film this weekend that sounds like it could be the most unique release of the month. Co-written, co-produced, and co-starring the band members, Through the Never tells the story of a roadie who has a surreal adventure during one of the band's shows. This seems to be much more like a feature length music video rather than your average music concert film, so it wouldn't really make sense to try to predict its opening weekend gross by comparing it to One Direction and Justin Bieber's concert movies. Hopefully the film's IMAX exclusive opening should help it achieve "event" status, which could bring its opening gross above $5 million despite its low theater count.
Also opening this weekend:
Antoine and Antoinette - one theater;
Hotel Normandy - one theater;
Inequality for All;
Morning - four theaters;
Muscle Shoals;
On the Job;
Shepard and Dark;
Therese;
We Are What We Are - two theaters;
The Wicker Man - Final Cut - one theater;
Wild Style: 30th Anniversary.
Tune in next week for a thrilling stand off between Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity and Ben Affleck vehicle Runner Runner.
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