Box-Office Preview: How Much Loot Will Tower Heist Make?

Universal

Another weekend, another slew of Hollywood movies dumped into theaters to do battle. Who’ll reign supreme — and why? Below, our predictions for the Top 5 movies at the box office.

5. In Time

As previously discussed, In Time face-planted in its first week out, managing a meager $12 million and a third-place finish. This week, with new movies opening, In Time will slide further down. Word-of-mouth can’t save this thing, because the vast majority of the word-of-mouth for this Justin Timberlake stinker involves people sticking a finger into their mouths and making a vomiting noise.

Prediction: $6 million

4. Paranormal Activity 3

Paranormal opened to a bonkers $54 million two weeks ago, then fell back down to Earth with $18 million last weekend. It’s not facing any competition from new horror movies, but Halloween is over.

Prediction: $10 million

3. A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas (New!)

At this point, three movies into the franchise, telling people you don’t like Harold and Kumar elicits roughly the same reaction as telling them you don’t like bacon (and rightfully so, goddamit!). H&K3 is also one of just two new wide-opening flicks this weekend, and has 3D ticket prices to help boost its take. One possible pitfall: How much of the movie’s core audience will drive to the movie theater, get cheefed in the parking lot, and forget to actually go inside?

Prediction: $15 million

2. Puss in Boots 3D

As The Hollywood Reporter points out, a freak snow storm on the East Coast depressed Puss’s first-weekend take, which was still a solid $34 million. Meaning: this could be an atypically healthy second week for this Shrek spinoff.

Prediction: $18 million

1. Tower Heist (New!)

The bonafides here are stacked: the intriguing return of Eddie Murphy in a non-kiddie movie; the box-office pull of Ben Stiller; the general crowd-pleasing abilities of director Brett Ratner the pleasant ensemble cast (Gabourey Sidibe, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick, etc.). The movie’s topicality — it’s about the working class employees of a luxury high-rise stealing their pensions back from an evil, one-percent-y villain — will also allegedly help. If it does, we might finally be able to sell our timely pitch for a remake of The Great Escape starring zoo animals.

Prediction: $33 million

Filed Under: The Future, Tower Heist

Amos Barshad has written for New York Magazine, Spin, GQ, XXL, and the Arkansas Times. He is a staff writer for Grantland.

Archive @ AmosBarshad