Box Office Preview: Keep an Eye on Redford
by EG
Most box office predictions for the Labor Day weekend have identified The Transporter Refueled as the new movie with the best chance to challenge holdovers Straight Outta Compton and War Room, but it might be a little too soon to discount Robert Redford's ability to draw a crowd.
Redford's A Walk in the Woods, an adventure comedy aimed at older audiences, opened on Wednesday night and took in a very respectable $1.2 million on that opening day. The Transporter Refueled and sold just $365,000 worth of tickets, despite the fact that it was showing on about 350 more screens than A Walk in the Woods was.
These early numbers could suggest that Redford's film has a chance to play stronger than The Transporter over the long holiday weekend. The Transporter will expand to several hundred more theaters once the weekend really gets started, though, and many of those theaters are IMAX venues where the ticket prices are higher.
Chances are, however, that neither film will be able to outpace the relatively popular holdovers, and all the films are going to struggle to draw viewers from audience that will probably prefer to spend its time barbecuing or watching football.