In looking at the box office predictions for this coming weekend, I was a bit stunned to see that the press had Identity Thief taking home as much as $29 million this weekend. Of course, this is based on all sorts of fancy data although that tends to be off by a whole lot from time to time which is why it is a bit shocking to see THR, BoxOffice.com, etc. showing bullish estimates for Seth Gordon’s follow-up to Horrible Bosses.
To be fair, there has not exactly been a comedy of the sort for months, and Movie 43 definitely does not begin to compare. Consumers could be angling for something more, and that might lead into a lot of love directed at small screen favorite Melissa McCarthy. Winter Storm Nemo is going to pose some problems for the North East, however, that still should not take the film’s opening below $20 million according to these early guesses.
So why the pessimism on my part? The movie has received terrible reviews and while comedies often shake the nay-sayers, that remains a rarity in today’s world where Jason Bateman’s last R-comedy (The Change-Up) which received similar feedback only found $13.5 million in its opening weekend against an early August release. This is not Horrible Bosses, and it is certainly not Bridesmaid which would be my explanation for guessing a conservative $10-15 million for the three-day.
The only other film opening wide this weekend is Side Effects–a thriller from director Steven Soderbergh.