Will Ferrell will attempt to lure in the family audience with his big screen adaption of Sid and Marty Krofft’s Land of the Lost. I could be wrong but I don’t think there are too many people out there clamoring for a Land of the Lost revival. The look of the movie is also confusing to me; it sort of blends top of the line FX (the dinosaurs) with cheesy, dated looking sets reminiscent of the old show. Another negative for this movie is its PG-13 rating due to sexual situations and some bad language which may keep parents from taking their kids. There is also of course major competition with Pixar’s Up and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian currently catering to the family audience. The reviews have also been terrible, but this shouldn’t have too much of an effect on the box office due to Will Ferrell’s sizable fan base. Overall, I expect Land of the Lost to have a decent debut with about $20M and for it to go extinct soon after.

Bradley Cooper throws an epic bachelor party in Vegas and loses the groom in the process in this weekend’s raunchy, R rated, laugh fest, The Hangover. The buzz for this movie has been off the chart and a sequel was greenlit months ago. Of course the sequel will only see the light of day if The Hangover rakes it in at the box office as expected. The Hangover has the marketplace to itself with the only other comedies in the marketplace (Land of the Lost, Night at the Museum) geared towards families and kids and will also benefit from its target audience of college students being home for the summer and all of the rave reviews it has been receiving from critics. R rated films are sometimes a tough sell at the box office but with the right mix of a good premise, likable lead actors and raunchy jokes, The Hangover should perform very much like all of the hit Judd Apatow produced comedies of the last few years. Take a look at some recent examples.

The Pineapple Express – 2008 - $23.2M opening $87.3M total
Step Brothers – 2008 - $30.9M opening $100.4M total
Forgetting Sarah Marshall – 2008 - $17.7M opening $63.1M total
Superbad – 2007 - $33M opening $121.4M total
Knocked Up – 2007 - $30.6M opening $148.7M

As you can see, when R rated comedy is done right, there is quite the audience for it. As far as star-power goes, the fairest comparison would be to Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Superbad, however, Sarah Marshall opened in spring when college students are still in school and stressing over finals. Superbad launched during the summer amid the same great buzz that The Hangover is getting and managed an amazing opening of $33M. I think The Hangover can do even better than that.  With that in mind, I think The Hangover is looking at a $41M debut.

The last new release of the weekend is My Life in Ruins, a comedy starring My Big Fat Greek Wedding star Nia Vardalos that is set in Greece. The movie looks terrible; like a reject from Lifetime that escaped to the big screen and the reviews have been pretty awful as well. Vardalos hasn’t managed to live up to the success of Greek Wedding and this film will probably be the last nail in the coffin for her career. Opening in just over 1000 theatres, My Life in Ruins will be lucky to walk away with $3M this weekend.

The house on balloons will continue to fly high this weekend and should have no trouble landing in first place again. Up should experience a moderate slip in its second flight much like Pixar hits of the past. Here are a few examples.

WALL-E – 2008 – 48% drop
Ratatouille – 2007 – 38% drop
Cars – 2006 – 44% drop
The Incredibles – 2004 – 29% drop
Finding Nemo – 2003 – 34% drop

Last year’s WALL-E experienced the largest drop out of them all but had the 4^th of July holiday to contend with in its second weekend. With great reviews and fabulous word of mouth Up will be down about 35% and sail off with another $44.2M bringing its total after 10 days to a terrific $134M. Last week’s latest horror entry, Drag Me to Hell underperformed a bit and should fall about 53% to scare up another $7.4M out of horror lovers. To see the rest of my predictions for this weekend’s top 10, check out the chart below.