If you're reading this right now, take a moment and thank Will Smith for being such a great movie star. Few stars engage the public, choose great film vehicles, and wield box office muscle like he does, and he should rescue the box office from the mire it has been in over the next three days. Things should pick up a good deal this weekend at the box office, with three new releases and the increasing business of the holiday season. I Am Legend, one of the few spectacle films of the Winter, should top the charts with no difficulty at all. Alvin and the Chipmunks could do some fair business, but things look grim for The Perfect Holiday. Will Smith stars in the apocalyptic thriller I Am Legend, which (along with National Treasure: Book of Secrets) seems to be a sure bet for success. I Am Legend is an apocalyptic thriller of sorts, in which Will Smith is the last man left on earth. Ads have slowly revealed more about the plot, and it is now clear that this is a horror/action movie, with copious amounts of plagued zombies. The trailer for this movie was just fantastic, and there has been steadily building excitement for the thriller all year long. Will Smith is one of the most bankable stars in the business, and people flock to see his movies each year. Reviews are mixed, but good enough to assure solid word-of-mouth. Released by Warner Brothers, I Am Legend opens in a very wide 3,606 theaters, and it should earn itself about $52 million this weekend.
Alvin and the Chipmunks, a Fox feature, is a movie that looks so childish, so unfunny, so cheap, so unabashedly awful, that I'd rather not talk about it. It's a movie that makes me say, "Why? Why did Garfield have to make $75 million back in 2004 and justify this film's existence?" However, I do write a blog about the movies, and it's my job to inform you, so here goes: Jason Lee stars in this send up of the small screen critters, which are here rendered with a very fake looking CGI technique, in a way similar to the Scooby Doo movies. Unfortunately, Alvin and the Chipmunks aren't really classic enough characters for this to be as big a success as Scooby Doo was. Reviews are awful, but families journey to the multiplex in mass quantities during the holidays, and if they'll settle for Fred Claus, they'll settle for this load. The sheer venue count of 3,475 theaters will give this movie an alright weekend, and it should bring in about $17 million.
The last new film is The Perfect Holiday, which actually opened on Wednesday this week. The Perfect Holiday features a mostly black cast, including Queen Latifah and Gabrielle Union, and it is hoping to attain some of the success This Christmas has found already this season. A romatic comedy about a single mother framed around the Christmas season, The Perfect Holiday's story looks pretty generic, and reviews are bad. In 1,306 theaters, the film has already played for two days, but has pulled in a measly $646,000, which means that the Yari Film Group project is destined for a $2 million weekend, which is far from Perfect.
Among holdovers, The Golden Compass should fall about 50% to $13 million, which New Line probably hoped the fantasy flick would see in its third or fourth weekend. That would give The Golden Compass $45 million overall. Enchanted should fall about 35% again to $7 million, for a $93 million total, well on it's way to the century club. No Country For Old Men garnered itself some major awards attention from the Golden Globes, so it should hold very well, earning another $3.9 million this weekend, for a $34.5 million total.
Predicted Top Twelve for December 14-16
1. I Am Legend - $52 million
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks - $17 million
3. The Golden Compass - $13 million
4. Enchanted - $7 million
5. No Country For Old Men - $3.9 million
6. Fred Claus - $3.6 million
7. This Christmas - $3.5 million
8. August Rush - $2.5 million
9. Beowulf - $2.4 million
10. The Perfect Holiday - $2 million
11. Hitman - $1.9 million
12. Awake - $1.8 million
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