Originally Posted by
brevity
Jason, yo momma is making you tweet, for some reason.
This is a first for me: I voted early. I saw no reason to torture myself with overthinking before I made my choices. This way I can do all my overthinking in the second-guessing process.
In order of confidence:
1. Iron Man 3. It's Marvel, it's Tony Stark, it's the first weekend of May, it's automatic. You want stats?
2012: The Avengers, $207M open, $623M total.
2010: Iron Man 2, $128M open, $312M total.
2008: Iron Man, $98M open, $318M total.
I mean, I could be wrong, but if I am, throw out everything we know.
2. Monsters University. Pixar could make a wordless space robot movie or put rats in a gourmet kitchen and make $200M. But here you have a continuation of beloved characters, geared toward both genders and all ages, and released in summer. That leaves one film as past comparison: Toy Story 3, which opened with $110M and finished with $415M.
3. Man of Steel. When I saw the midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises, the three biggest cheers were for John Blake's middle name, Alfred's final scene in the French cafe, and the trailer for Man of Steel. I read somewhere that no one is looking at this as a Zack Snyder film, but a Christopher Nolan production. Nolan mints money. Also, this summer has only 3 superhero movies, and this one has a 5-week cushion after Iron Man and another 5-week cushion before Wolverine.
4. The Lone Ranger. I'm putting a lot of faith in Disney marketing here, which is odd, considering how much hell I gave them for mismarketing Wreck-It Ralph last year and getting lucky. I'm also presuming that Depp is a box office draw when he's not Jack Sparrow. But mostly I think people want to see an event film for July 4, and Despicable Me 2 is not the main event. (I would not pick this film if it were released a week earlier or a week later.)
5. Star Trek Into Darkness. Two films from May should make this year's top 5. I've decided that the two Memorial Day releases (Fast 6 and Hangover III) are geared toward the same audience and will weaken each other. I've been wrong about Hangover before, and am willing to be wrong about it again. Anyway, people seem to be geeking out about Star Trek, its director, its secrets, its villain, and its crew. These factors should help this film do better than the prior film, which only made $257M.
If you agree, feel free to pick the same five. But if we win, know who got there first. Believe that.