The weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday is usually a quiet one at the national box office, and this year should prove to be no exception. No less than four new movies, three in wide release and one via a limited debut, are vying for box office bucks. The quartet of wide openers, however, will hardly pose a threat to last weekend's big winners.This weekend should finally see the smash sports hit drama "The Blind Side" step up to the number one spot, a location it inhabited on Thanksgiving Day. As I have mentioned over the past couple of weeks, the Sandra Bullock film has caught everyone off guard. People who have seen it have loved it, and the critical consensus wasn't as bad as you might think (72% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes). As with every film from last week, the film will encounter some drop off in attendance. The drop for this one, however, might not be as steep as others. Watch for "The Blind Side" to nab roughly $23 million this weekend, which should bring its total up to an amazing $132 million after 17 days of release.
Summit Entertainment's juggernaut "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" dropped 70% last week from its terrific opening the weekend before. While that number is huge, it is also to be expected. Upfront demand was through the roof, and there were more than enough screens around showing the movie to accommodate said demand. So with fans seeing it en masse opening weekend, a big drop was expected. This weekend will show another sizable erosion, but more in the 50% range. Watch for Bella and company to collar roughly $21 million more in "blood money" to bring "New Moon"s domestic total to around the $260 million range.
As for the new blood at theaters, the one that shows the most potential to make any sort of money would be the urban action flick "Armored", which stars Matt Dillon, Jean Reno and Laurence Fishburne. Sony is releasing the film in a small (for an action film) amount of theaters (1,915) and through their Screen Gems division, which usually translates into a bad film. Action fans who have seen "Ninja Assassin" might check out "Armored" to get their fill of bullets and action. Everyone else will most likely wait for the DVD release. Watch for "Armored" to nab roughly $8 million this weekend.
A remake of a 1990 Italian film, the Robert De Niro family drama "Everybody's Fine" will unspool in 2,133 screens. Early word-of-mouth has not been kind to the drama, and the previews are so sappy that I could have sworn I got three cavities during the two-minute trailer. If you have been waiting for De Niro to make a quality comeback, you might have to wait a little while longer. The success of fellow mainstream drama "The Blind Side" isn't going to help matters any for the Miramax release. Watch for the film to pull in approximately $6 million this weekend.
New release number three is the new Lionsgate drama "Brothers", starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Tobey Maguire. Directed by Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan ("In the Name of the Father", "My Left Foot", "In America"), "Brothers" has been pulling in some solid notices, mostly for the acting from its three talented leads. However, the film's dark tone and downbeat nature will no doubt prove to be something that viewers might be more comfortable watching at home than they would in the theaters. Opening in a little over 2,000 screens, "Brothers" might tie or gross a little more than "Everybody's Fine" this weekend to pull in an estimated $6.5 million.
This weekend also sees the debut of the new Jason Reitman film, "Up in the Air" which stars George Clooney. Clooney plays a corporate downsizer whose tidy, isolated life is about to experience some much-needed turbulence thanks to two very different women that come into his life. I've seen the film twice now and I think it is the best live-action film of the year so far. The performances are excellent across the board, the script is sharp and funny, and Reitman's directing proves to be a major leap forward over his two previous efforts (both which were also quite good), "Thank You For Smoking" and "Juno". "Air" is getting a slow rollout from Paramount over the month of December, which I think is a very smart move (the film goes wide on Christmas Day). Taking off from 15 screens this weekend, "Up in the Air" could see a gross somewhere in the ballpark of $500,000 to $700,000.
Next week, Disney's 2-D animated feature "The Princess and the Frog" goes into wide release, along with the Clint Eastwood sports drama "Invictus" and, in very limited release, the Peter Jackson drama "The Lovely Bones".
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