The summer box office season is upon us as mutant superhero, Wolverine slices and dices his way to multiplexes everywhere in the prequel/spin-off, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Matthew McConaughey returns to his strongest genre in romantic comedy, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and animated CGI characters will go to war in Battle for Terra. Let’s see how it all shakes out.

Clearly it is no mystery that Wolverine will have a big opening and be the #1 movie this weekend; so the question becomes how big is big? In my recent summer box office predictions, I had Wolverine pegged to make $110M on its opening with a total domestic run of $275M, but with not much support from critics and mixed reviews at best, I now think those numbers will be lower. I think this will eat more into its overall gross and not so much into its opening frame. Make no mistake about it Wolverine is going to have a big opening in line with last year’s $102M Iron Man opening. There is much to consider with this movie. First, Wolverine is a more popular character than Iron Man, ask any comic geek (I’m one of them) and they’ll tell you. For that reason alone I thought Wolverine would outpace shell heads opening take, but here’s where it gets tricky. Although Wolverine is not technically a sequel, it is in terms of box office potential. Take a look at how the X-Men movies performed.

X-Men - $54.4M opening $157M total
X2: X-Men United - $85.5 opening $214M total
X-Men: The Last Stand - $102M opening $234M

As you can see, with every movie, both the opening take and total box office goes up with each film based on the strength and the quality of the prior film. This is where the negative comes in for Wolverine. There was quite the backlash from fans who felt unsatisfied with The Last Stand and this could eat into Wolverine’s opening. If X3 was as universally loved as X2, Wolverine would’ve been looking at an opening in the $120M-$130M range. Another factor is the leaked copy of the movie that hit the internet. I believe most of the people that saw the early copy will still show up at theatres, but it will definitely cause the loss of some potential ticket buyers. So where does this leave us? Technically Wolverine should make more than Iron Man based on popularity, but it should make less than X-Men: The Last Stand due to that movies poor reception. This leaves us roughly in a range of $85M-$115M.   X-Men Origins: Wolverine will open with $95M and top off at the box office at about $250M.

Matthew McConaughey plays to his box office strength in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, a romantic comedy with A Christmas Carol like twist. McConaughey plays the eternal bachelor who is visited by ghosts of girlfriends from his past, present and future and realizes he let his one true love (Jennifer Garner) slip through his fingertips. The movie has a good premise that audiences will respond to and it is also always smart to counter program against an action blockbuster with a rom com for the ladies. This is also McConaughey’s strongest genre at the box office. Take a look.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days - $23.7M opening $105M total
Failure to Launch - $24.4M opening $88.7M total
Fool’s Gold - $21.6M opening $70.2M total

The reviews for Ghosts have been terrible, but so were the reviews for Failure to Launch and Fool’s Gold and that didn’t stop them from bringing in the coin. Matthew McConaughey is bullet (critic) proof in romantic comedies and inarguably the king of the genre. Look for Ghosts of Girlfriends Past to open strong with about $18M on its way to $85M total.

The last new release of the weekend is 3-D animated film, Battle of Terra. The plot focuses on a battle featuring aliens versus humans with the twist being that the humans are the bad guys. There isn’t really much to say about this one other than that it is going to bomb, big time. Terra stars the voice talents of Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood and Brian Cox. The movie isn’t based on any popular property (that I know of) and will only appeal to young boys which will make Terra hard pressed to gain any traction at the box office.  Battle for Terra will maybe make $1M this weekend, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it open to as little as $500,000 like animated bomb Delgo did this past December.

Among holdovers, last week’s box office champ, Obsessed is in for a tumble, probably about 60%. Look for it to gross about $11.5M this time around. Disney’s documentary Earth should have a nice hold, slipping a moderate 40% to gross another $5.3M. Last weekend, The Soloist opened on a flat note, but it should only drop about 45% to $5.4M and on the opposite end, Fighting opened strongly last week and will drop at least 60% to bring in about $4.4M. To see my other predictions, check out the chart below.