Districts 9 produced by Peter Jackson, takes place in South Africa, where aliens’ crash landed 2 decades ago and have since been living in a controlled area monitored by humans. When the government decides to relocate the aliens things go south and lead to war. The film is from first time director Neill Blomkamp and it has been generating great buzz since being shown at Comic-Con a couple of weeks ago. The early reviews from critics have also been extremely positive so District 9 should have a great debut weekend in front of it. On the negative side, District 9 carries an R rating which will keep teen traffic away. The film is also shot with a handheld camera and all of the actors have South African accents which could make it a hard sell. There is also competition from G.I. Joe to consider. All of this factors in to what looks like a $30M debut. With positive word of mouth from audiences after this weekend, District 9 could wind up as the sleeper hit of the year (behind The Hangover of course).

Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana star in romantic drama, The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on the best-selling novel. The film is about a woman who marries a man who uncontrollably travels back in forth through time. This is Bana’s third film this summer, behind his villainous turn in Star Trek and his performance as an envious husband in Funny People. Bana is a bit of a chameleon however, so there is no real danger of oversaturation. McAdams has had success in this genre before with 2004’s The Notebook, also based on a popular novel. The reviews haven’t been that good and Julie & Julia will provide some competition for the female audience. Look for The Time Traveler’s Wife to travel to a $18M debut.

Jeremy Piven stars in The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard about a mercenary car salesman for hire who helps dealerships in financial jeopardy sell their goods. The early reviews have been dreadful and the trailer isn’t all that funny either. The Goods may have a hard time selling tickets this weekend. A great comedic cast that features Ving Rhames, Tony Hale, Ken Jeong and hot off The Hangover, Ed Helms should help the film to live hard for about a weekend. Look for The Goods to make about $6M this weekend and for the dealership to close shortly after.

Next up is Bandslam starring Vanessa Hudgens of High School Musical fame and Lisa Kudrow. The PG movie is about a group of high school kids competing in a battle of the bands contest. Hudgens doesn’t have the same star power as her HSM co-star, Zac Ephron and it is doubtful that much of the fan base for that series will follow her here. Studio Summit is attempting to lure in audiences by premiering a new trailer for Twilight: New Moon in front of Bandslam, but I highly doubt this is going to help matters. Look for Bandslam to debut to the tune of $2.5M. 

The final new release is animated film, Ponyo starring Noah Lindsey Cyrus (Miley’s little sis), Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett and many others. The movie is about a little boy who is friends with a princess goldfish who wants to be human. Ponyo is brought to you from acclaimed animation director, Hayao Miyazaki and was first released in Japan last year. Although I’m sure it’s a good movie, after a summer of 3-D Dinosaurs, floating houses and guinea pigs spies, there aren’t too many kids who are going to be interested in a old school animated movie. The film is opening in about 800 theatres and will probably debut to about $3M somewhere at the bottom of the top 10.

Among holdovers, last weekend’s champ, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (read my review) has been holding up pretty well during the week, collecting roughly $6M each day. Look for Joe to lose the battle for #1 and decline about 58% to shoot up another $23M, bringing its total to about $103M after 10 days. Meryl Streep’s latest, Julie & Julia, will slip about 40% to cook up $12M this weekend. To see the rest of my predictions, check out the chart below.

Come back Monday for results and be sure to follow me on Twitter for box office updates over the weekend.