Weekend Box Office #32

This week, only one movie is opening in more than 27 theaters, and that's SHREK THE THIRD, which is opening in 4122 of them.

Three years ago, the movie opened on Wednesday this same week, and brought in $108 million for the weekend ($129 million for the first 5 days), in what was then a record 4163 theaters.

It went on to gross $441 million in North America, and a total of $920 million worldwide.

It's my belief that opening weekends for sequels generally are linked much more to the quality of the previous film than the current version. The fact that SHREK was a very good movie fed interest in SHREK 2.

The fact that SHREK 2 wasn't quite as good may dampen interest -- slightly -- in SHREK THE THIRD, which doesn't seem to be getting raves (to say the least -- it's currently at 43% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 77 reviews tallied. Shrek got 89% good reviews; Shrek 2, surprisingly, 88%).

Still, there's literally nothing else out there, and I think it'll clean up despite the reviews. Call it $117 million for the first three days. But I doubt it'll make much more than $300 million for its whole run -- not that that's small potatoes.

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A reminder -- I'm going to be at the Writers Guild Foundation TV thing tomorrow (which is sold out), sitting in the audience, hopefully soaking up wisdom.

I'll be the guy with glasses and goatee (like 60% of the men there, and 4% of the women) and the no-longer-very-gray hair (Just For Men, thumbs up). I'll be standing in a corner looking shy, unless I get enough caffeine in me to actually introduce myself to people.

There are apparently name badges involved, so if you see me say hello.