Weekend Box Office preview

The weekend after Labor Day is usually the lowest grossing weekend of the entire calendar year for movies. Kids are back in school, the new television season is gearing up as is the new NFL season. So, Hollywood tends to use it as dumping ground part two (after Labor Day), films so undesirable that they aren't even good enough to open on Labor Day weekend. Last year, the rancid Nic Cage misfire "Bangkok Dangerous" opened at number one with a scant $7.8 million, one of the lowest-grossing number one openings in recent memory.

This year, it's a little different. There are four films opening this weekend, two that may have the potential to last longer than one to two weeks. In fact, there is a good chance that this weekend's new offerings and the long-running holdovers from August may be enough to raise ticket sales above last weekend's holiday take.

Opening in a little over 1,600 theaters is the CGI-animated sci-fi film "9" (the film actually opened on, you guessed it, 9-09-09). The advertising campaign has been fairly heavy for the PG-13 tale that was boasts the producing talents of Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted). The film took in $3.1 million on Wednesday, but mixed reviews and so-so word-of-mouth might make for tough going as it heads into the weekend. Watch for "9" to nab roughly, erm $9 million from Friday to Sunday and $14 million overall for its first five days.

At this point in his career, Tyler Perry could shoot his alter-ego Madea reading the phone book and it would pull in big bucks on its opening weekend. Perry's new film, "I Can Do Bad All By Myself", should have no problem nabbing the number one spot. While the film may not have the big names some of his other films have, it does have the character Madea, which will no doubt be a big draw for Perry's target audience. I haven't seen any of Perry's films, but I have to hand it to the man: he makes movies that people want to see and chances are he always turns a profit for the studio backing him, which gives him the freedom to develop whatever he wants. Watch for "I Can Do Bad All By Myself" to nab somewhere around $20-25 million for the weekend.

The third new entry to the market is the T&A slasher flick, "Sorority Row". The third slasher film aimed at teens in as many as two weeks, "Sorority" looks like a rip off of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" as vapid bimbos are picked off one by one by some crazed killer that apparently they wronged (my money is on a rejected sorority pledge). Granted, there may be some fun in watching a bunch of scantily-clad airheads get stabbed and skewered for 90 minutes, but something tells me the sure-to-be atrocious acting/writing/directing would make it too difficult to endure. Besides, they already gave away the biggest scare in the commercials: the sight of Carrie Fisher as the Sorority house mom. You've dropped a long way since the days of the slave Leia outfit, Carrie.

Teens that aren't burnt out on horror films yet will be the only ones seeing "Sorority Row" this weekend, so watch for the gross to land in the $10 million range before fading into the sunset next weekend, when another horror film opens, the Megan Fox vehicle "Jennifer's Body".

The fourth film opening this weekend is the one that will probably do the least amount of business: the Kate Beckinsale thriller "Whiteout". Directed by Dominic Sena, the visionary genius behind "Swordfish" and the remake of "Gone In Sixty Seconds", "Whiteout" is the story of a U.S. Marshall (Beckinsale) attempting to solve a murder mystery in Antartica before the continent's winter takes over. Advanced word on this is absolutely dire, and the ad campaign has been minimal at best. Watch for this one to vanish almost as fast as "Sorority Row". This weekend, "Whiteout" may pull in around $7.5 million.

With four new movies opening, one being a horror film, watch for "The Final Destination" to drop down to fifth, possibly even sixth (behind "Inglourious Basterds") with roughly $6 million in ticket sales. "Inglourious Basterds" should have another decent weekend with roughly $6.5 to $7 million, while the Sandra Bullock film "All About Steve" should suffer a direct word-of-mouth hit and drop to around $5 million.

Next week, watch for another quartet of titles to enter into a crowded marketplace: the animated feature "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs", the Matt Damon black comedy "The Informant!" (see my mini-review below), the Jennifer Aniston/Aaron Eckhart romantic comedy "Love Happens" and the aforementioned "Jennifer's Body".