Wronged Women, Exotic Birds and Super Heroes All Gun for the Top Box Office Spot

It is a week before the monsoon known as the summer blockbuster season that will be rumbling out with The Amazing Spider-Man 2. But this week it is genres fare that won't be attracting the herds like next weekend, but studios are still hoping for some sleeper hits. Scott predicts what pictures will likely land in the top five along with the chance of all three of the new wide release pictures.

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It is once again Friday, which means more predictions to be done for the box office. It is yet another busy week in theatres as three films enter in wide release ahead of next week’s behemoth, The Amazing Spider-Man 2. That means this is the last real week of opportunity for Captain America: The Winter Soldier before it is no longer the must-see super hero movie. Let us now take a look who may be landing in the top five in theatres.

First Place – The Other Woman - $17 Million

The Other Woman is a comedy in which a woman finds out her husband is having an affair, and they then find out he is having an affair with yet another woman. It boasts the likes of Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann and Kate Upton, who appear to unite to try and bring the cheating SOB down. So many times comedies are male driven, but the trailers for this film looks like it could give good evidence as to why that should not always be the case. While Leslie Mann, who is incredibly talented, may not have the name value to drive people to theatres, Diaz (apart from a few films) has shown a past of delivering solid opening weekends. The marketing brains at Fox have made sure to also show scenes of Kate Upton in a bikini, something which they most likely hope will help persuade men to take in the film.

It currently has a poor reception on Rotten Tomatoes, generating a rating of only 27% at the time of writing this. That does not mean the film won’t succeed however, as Ride Along only had a rating of 18% and still went on to gross $41 million in its opening weekend thanks to the intrigue audiences had in the casting. The biggest challenge it will face is the lack of internet buzz, as tweets regarding this film have dropped from over 9,000 tweets on Tuesday to only approximately 3,000 tweets on Thursday.

Second Place – Captain America: The Winter Soldier - $15 million

Normally I would pick a movie that is going into its fourth weekend to drop around 55%, but betting against the staying power of Captain America has not gone well for me in the past weeks. Thanks to the very healthy critical reception and positive word of mouth from fans, the film has been able to outperform expectations and keep its decline in check. It is assisted by the fact that there are still no competing movies for it to face, and all of the new releases should not be detracting from whatever audience members plan on checking it out. Going out on a limb, I will predict that it only drops 40% from last week’s $25.5 million performance.

Third Place – Rio 2 - $13 Million

Animated family features have a history of holding up pretty well from week to week, and Rio 2 is similar to Captain America in that it has no competition. If you are a family and want an outing to the theatres, your option is Rio 2 (Christopher: Or the pleasant nature doc, Bears). My Spidy senses tell me that it could drop around 45%, but I have decided to go against better judgement and predict that it will instead fall only 40% from last week’s $22 million.

Fourth Place – Heaven is for Real - $9 Million

After having a stellar opening weekend and taking second place in theatres, it is hard for me to believe that this faith based movie will be able to keep up the momentum this week. Last week, when it opened to $22.5 million dollars, it had the benefit of playing over Easter, a holiday that is able to get people in the religious mood. A week later it is left without such support, and will most likely follow the same sort of second week drop that Son of God had when it fell 59%.

Fifth Place – Brick Mansions - $8 Million

The trailers for Brick Mansions make me picture it as a cross between The Raid: Redemption and Escape From L.A. (or New York… take your pick. They are the exact same film) and stars the late Paul Walker. While it is possible that the fact that Walker is in it may entice viewers to give it a once around, it is very much a genre picture that will most likely not gain too much of a boost from that. It is the style of the film that will dictate the types of audience that the film gets, and straight up martial arts fests are not the highest grossing films as of late.

Also in wide release this weekend is the horror film The Quiet Ones, which will be released from Lionsgate in 2000 theatres. Apparently the online tracking for this film has been awful, and Boxoffice.com puts it at being somewhere around the likes of Devil’s Due, which brought in $8 million its opening weekend. However, it is tricky to see The Quiet Ones performing as well since horror fans have recently gotten their dose of scares from Oculus, a movie that was able to win over a good percentage of critics, something that is no easy task for horror movies.

Edit 4/15 2:20pm: Initially, there wasn't an amount of predicted gross for Captain America: The Winter Soldier.