'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' Aims to Swing to Top Spot on its Opening Weekend

Scott predicts the top five grossing pictures on a weekend that is considered the kick-off to the big summer blockbuster season (though Captain America would argue it started a month earlier).

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Today’s predictions will be a condensed version, as I have little time on my hands between another project I am working on, seeing The Amazing Spider-Man 2 tonight (Thursday night) so I can have a review posted by the time you read this, as well as having to travel out of town. A busy day, so let’s jump into what the weekend has in store for us.

First Place – The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – $100 million

Being the lone wide release film this weekend, there is nothing to get in the way of Peter Parker crawling into number one spot as Spider-Man. It has been a month since the last super hero movie in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and it is also the weekend that is the official kick-off to the summer blockbuster season. Last year it was Iron Man 3 that held this weekend, opening to a colossal $174 million, a mark that is out of reach for this film who is coming off of the back of a $62 million opening weekend for 2012’s (the year the world was to end) The Amazing Spider-Man.

The rebranding of Spider-Man seems to have worked, with the first film succeeding in theatres and making a global total of $757 million, and it has the support of Sony’s trailers making the film look loaded with challenges for the web-slinger. It is leading the way on Twitter right now, but I should also point out that BoxOffice.com shows that it is behind where other super hero movies such as Man of Steel, The Avengers, and The Dark Knight Rises were at the same point in their release cycles. This of course could mean very little, especially if word of mouth gets strong after the first screenings of the film.

Second Place – The Other Woman - $15 million

This film could see a much lower number than this, but after thinking about it and looking at the second weekend drop rates for movies such as We’re The Millers (31%) and The Heat (37%), I am going to go with a drop of 38% and really hope that I am right. My gut was originally telling me that it would be in the 55% range, but here I am defying instinct.

Third Place – Rio 2 - $9 million

Here is where I get very bold, as I see an opportunity for Rio 2 to perhaps outperform both Heaven is for Real and Captain America (both of whom topped the animated film last weekend). It is just based on the fact that there are absolutely no competing forces for the film in the land of animated family fare.

Fourth Place – Heaven is for Real - $8.5 million

Continuing my trend of being bold, I think the faith-based movie will end up winding in fourth based on the same reasons for Rio 2. It is a genre that has no threats against it at the moment and should be able to perform decently this weekend. Sorry for the short thoughts on these, but time crunch!

Fifth Place – Captain America: The Winter Soldier - $8 million

And now for the reason why I put Rio 2 and Heaven is for Real higher up in the list. Of all of the films that are out there, the one that will lose out the most this weekend is Captain America, who now suffers from facing direct and fresh competition. It has done remarkably well in exceeding expectations, but I really think this is the point in its cycle where it is about to come back down to the land of reality. It is a great movie, which should get even stronger by the time the third film comes out.