New Movies Apr. 18-20: 'Transcendence' Unlikely to Win the Week
by EG
With four new wide releases, this week is one of the busiest at the box office in quite some time. All of those new movies look like they'll be only modestly successful at best, leaving holdovers from previous weeks as favorites to win the ticket-sales competition.
The highest profile among the new movies belongs to "Transcendence," a big-budget sci fi thriller starring Johnny Depp. The movie had a weak opening on Thursday night, and forecasts have it taking in only about $20 million or less for the weekend, which would be a poor showing considering its $100 million production budget.
The sentimental, faith-based melodrama "Heaven Is for Real" opened much stronger on Wednesday, taking in $3.7 million on its first day, as opposed to "Transcendence"'s $850,000. The recent spate of Christian movies have been performing well, and "Heaven is for Real" is projected to earn about $20 million for the weekend.
The other two new releases are "Bears," a nature documentary from Disney, and "A Haunted House 2," a horror movie parody sequel. The latter will probably earn somewhere around $10 million, the former a few million less.
That leaves either "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" or "Rio 2" as the likely winner this week. They'll each probably take in somewhere between $20 million and $25 million, which should be enough to beat all the new competition.