Surrogates got off to a somewhat decent start, collecting $14.9M, close to my $16M target. Not the best start for an action movie, but also not the worst. In fact, it was Willis’ best opening in a few years (not counting Die Hard 4). Take a look.

 

 

Reviews have been mixed, although I enjoyed it quite a bit (read my review here), so the chances of this film having legs in the next few weeks are slim at best. It does have a small chance however, due to the fact that there aren’t any straight up action movies scheduled to be released in the next few weeks. Although, horror comedy/action movie Zombietown may steal away some of its audience this weekend. Look for Surrogates to make its way to about $50M.

The remake of the classic 1980 film, Fame, which also spawned a hit album and TV series failed to generate any buzz and opened in 3^rd place with $10M, exactly as I predicted. It is the current trend in Hollywood to reboot, reinvent or reimagine hit franchises of the past but there are some properties that should just be left alone. Starting over character driven franchises like Batman or James Bond makes sense because they are characters that will always be a part of the pop culture landscape, whether their last movie flopped or not…. But Fame? The teenage audience doesn’t even know about the original movie and show and are certainly not nostalgic for it. Will Ferrell certainly learned that lesson with his summer remake of Land of the Lost. Then again, he agreed to star in Lost after his big screen adaption of Bewitched bombed, so maybe he hasn’t learned from his mistakes. The dream of stardom will end for Fame at about $25M. Dissappointing, as this will probably be the final nail in the coffin for a remake of Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. 

Hollywood has to be wondering where all of the horror fans have gone. Sci-fi/horror, Pandorum, stariing Dennis Quaid, is another in a long line of fright flicks in the last couple of weeks that bombed at the box office. The scary space thriller opened weakly in 6^th place with $4.4M, even less than my $6M forecast. Pandorum performed even worse than recent horror bombs, Jennifer’s Body, Sorority Row and Whiteout (to name but a few). Pandorum will be lucky to make it to $12M by the end of its voyage.

The forecast at theatres was still Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs for the second weekend in a row. The hit toon eased off a really impressive 17% to serve up another $25M. This was an amazing hold and far better than my predicted 30% drop off. Meatballs now stands at $60.5M and should easily find its way to $125M. The weeks ahead will be a little tougher with the rerelease of Toy Story 1 and 2 as a 3-D double feature this weekend and Where the Wild Things Are opening the following frame. Nonetheless, Meatballs is a huge success and will still continue to take in money. To see how the rest of the top 10 shaped up and how accurate my predictions were, check out the chart below.

Be sure to come back Thursday for my predictions for this weekend’s releases; Whip It, The Invention of Lying, Zombieland and Toy Story 1 and 2 3-D.

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