LOS ANGELES - This is one of the toughest weekends for the movie industry, with the Super Bowl stealing Sunday audiences and blocking them from packing the multiplex. It's not uncommon to see a 60 percent drop from Saturday to Sunday.
An exception was Super Bowl weekend last year, when Sony effectively capitalized on the counter-programming draw of the romantic drama "Dear John" and came up with a $30.5 million touchdown.
Sony should land on top again this year with the dramatic thriller "The Roommate," with a weekend in the $10 million to $12 million range. Although it won't have the popularity of "Dear John," this variation on "Single White Female" set in a college dormitory offers a viable alternative for women looking to escape the football madness at home.
The rest of the top five is a veritable coin toss, with four films expected to land within $2 million of each other. The most likely scenario has Paramount's "No Strings Attached" grabbing second place with around $8 million and benefiting from being perhaps the only film in the top five to be truly "Super Bowl proof." The R-rated romantic comedy held up extremely well in its second weekend and should do so again, given its strong female appeal.
In the wake of 12 Oscar nominations and a SAG Award for best ensemble cast, Weinstein Co.'s "The King's Speech" is gaining broad mainstream appeal as even younger audiences are now lining up to see the biopic. With a 30 percent drop, the film could earn around $7.5 million in its 11th weekend of release. A global ransom of more than $150 million awaits this "King" by the end of the weekend.
Anthony Hopkins in Warner Bros.' devilish thriller "The Rite" topped the box office last weekend and will likely scare up another $7 million to $8 million this weekend as it battles "The King's Speech" for the souls of moviegoers in what looks to be a very tight race.
James Cameron's 3-D action-adventure "Sanctum" from Universal will dive into theaters in fifth place. The marketing campaign for the film has featured Cameron and boasts some amazing images that should draw a crowd comparable to the similarly-themed "The Descent" and "The Cave" and thus collect receipts in the $6 million to $8 million range.
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