By Bill Bonfanti

BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS FOR THE WEEKEND OF JULY 27-29

There are two new films opening in wide release this weekend:  Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill team up for R-rated comedy The Watch from 20^th Century Fox and Summit Entertainment goes back to the well once again with PG-13 dance flick Step Up: Revolution, the fourth in the series.  Both films will be competing with the second weekend of The Dark Knight Rises and as such they have their work cut out for them.  The Watch, which centers on the alien invasion of a suburban town, may serve as good counter-programming for those looking for a laugh and stars Stiller, Vaughn and Hill are usually reliable draws at the box office.  Step Up: Revolution will likely continue the downward trend started by the last film in the tired series and open with underwhelming results.  Based on my estimates, the Top 10 will generate about $142 million over the weekend, down about 15.4% from last year when Universal’s Cowboys and Aliens and The Smurfs from Sony led the overall Top 10 to a total of $167.9 million.

R-rated comedy The Watch from 20^th Century Fox stars Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill as members of a neighborhood watch crew that discover their suburban town is being invaded by aliens.  Last summer was dominated by R-rated comedies but The Watch is only the third this summer following Adam Sandler’s box office bomb That’s My Boy and Seth MacFarlane’s humongous comedy hit Ted.  The Watch will likely fall somewhere in the middle, not a huge hit but not a box office catastrophe either.  The film has had the unfortunate luck of being mired in controversy, first prompting a title change from Neighborhood Watch to the new abbreviated title due to the unfortunate shooting of a Florida teen by an overzealous neighborhood watcher.  The film now has the unfortunate task of being the first new wide release to hit theaters after last weekend’s tragic shooting in Colorado.  It remains to be seen if the box office will be able to rebound after suffering last weekend due to the tragedy and ultimately it really doesn’t matter in face of such senseless violence, but nonetheless, we are here to discuss box office.

The trailers for the film have had some funny moments and should be enough to excite fans of the leads, but the film may have a hard time pulling in audiences beyond that.  The truth is it shouldn’t matter.  If the fans of Stiller, Vaughn and Hill show up, the movie is a guaranteed hit.  The problem is outside of Hill’s recent successes (21 Jump Street, Moneyball), the other stars haven’t had much to celebrate recently.  Stiller and Vaughn haven’t been packing the big punch they used to have at the box office.  Stiller’s last films (not counting Madagascar 3) Tower Heist and Little Fockers performed fairly well, but not in the league with the actor’s prior hits, signaling that he has likely peaked.  Likewise, Vaughn’s last film The Dilemma was a flop at the box office.  Of course, these two have been in many fondly remembered comedy hits and the goodwill generated should spill over to The Watch; at least for opening weekend.

There are more negatives for The Watch as well.  There haven’t been any critics screenings as of yet which is a troubling sign.  It looks very much like Fox knows it has a dog on its hands.  The R-rating will restrict teenage boys from purchasing a ticket to the film and they are the audience that would probably appreciate this film the most.  The Watch will also have to face off with the second weekend of The Dark Knight Rises.  This is a daunting task in and of itself, but it could be even worse now as The Dark Knight Rises certainly lost some ticket sales last weekend due to the tragedy and may now experience a stronger hold than it originally might have.  Look for The Watch to beam up about $22 million this weekend.

Step Up: Revolution is the fourth entry in the popular dance series that started in 2006 and is best known for launching Channing Tatum’s career.  There isn’t much pent up demand for another installment in the series.  The first film opened with a strong $20.7 million and danced its way to an overall gross of $65.3 million.  The grosses have fallen with each film with 2010’s Step Up 3D collecting only $42.4 million after a $15.8 million debut, despite premium charges for the third dimension.  The original films were produced by Touchstone and distributed by Disney.  The Mouse House is no longer involved in the series and Summit Entertainment has stepped up to become the new distributor.  Summit doesn’t have the marketing muscle of Disney, putting the latest film in a deficit immediately.

When the first film came out, dance was extremely popular.  The dance craze has died down tremendously as evidenced by the fact that the ratings for reality competitions Dancing With the Stars and So you Think You Can Dance have diminished significantly over the last few seasons.  So You Think You can Dance is now down to one show per week versus two and sometimes even three per week when it was a ratings juggernaut.  In fact, So You Think You Can Dance’s fingerprints are all over Step Up: Revolution.  The film stars many of the reality shows past contestants and features the work of many of the shows celebrated choreographers.  The film has been advertised heavily on the dance competition, but with ratings down, it won’t be that much help.  There should be enough of a fanbase left for these films that would propel it to an opening in the low double digits at least, but it is possible the film will gross less than $10 million this weekend.  Expect Step Up: Revolution to hip hop away with about $10 million this weekend.

To see the rest of my predictions for the weekend, check out the chart below.

Weekend Release Schedule, 2012 vs. 2011

All debuting titles for the weekend are in red.

JULY 27 – 29 2012

JULY 29 – 31 2011

Based on my estimates for the weekend, total box office will be down about 15.4% from 2011.

Preview of Films Opening Next Weekend

Predictions for the Weekend of August 3 – 5, 2012

There are two new films opening in wide release the weekend of August 3-5: Colin Farrell steps in for Arnold Schwarzenegger in Sony’s remake of 90’s sci-fi film Total Recall and 20^th Century Fox releases family friendly threequel Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days.  Total Recall was originally supposed to face off with The Bourne Legacy this weekend but the spy flick pushed back its release date a week.  This will help Total Recall establish a stronger foothold in the marketplace.  At the start of the summer, the film didn’t look as though it was going to be much of a performer, but the film looks better and better with each trailer.  The Diary of a Wimpy Kid films have been moderately successful so far and there is no reason to believe that families won’t be up for a third outing.  This is the first in the series to debut in the more competitive summer season, but the film should be just fine and will likely perform on par with its predecessors.

Bill Bonfanti writes daily as Box Office Analyst and Film Critic for FilmGo.net.  Sign up today for FilmGo’s FREE Box Office Newsletter.  Learn More