And Hanks Rules All

Yeah, but what's fun about playing with a building?

Box Office Prediction for 5/15/2009

1.
Angels & Demons
Prediction: $57 million

2.
Star Trek
Prediction: $39 million


- My logic for Angels & Demons? Actually I don’t really have any – just playing a hunch here. Da Vinci Code opened to $77 two summers ago (on its way to $760 worldwide), but Angels & Demons doesn’t have nearly the hype or the cache (yes, I just used cache on A&M) of its predecessor. So it won’t repeat that success, but I still think it opens big - not Double D, $77m big - but $57m, a nice handful.

- The real value for this film is overseas – Da Vinci racked up $540 internationally, only 12 movies have made more outside of the US (The Dark Knight made $468m by comparison). So whatever the movie makes here is just more syrup to pour on their enormous pile of money waffles.

- The bigger battle here is not Da Vinci vs. Angels & Demons, it’s Hanks’ mullet (seen here) vs. Hanks’ soccer mom / Diane Lane cut (here). If something crazy happens, and Angels shoots past Da Vinci on the all time list this will be a major blow for mullets worldwide.

- Side note: hasn’t the term “the Pope is not very happy with X” lost all meaning at this point? What movie / star / band / food group is his eminence “pooping his pants thrilled with” at the moment? The Pope is not thrilled with yogurt right now.

- I alluded to some of Hanks’ BO numbers in my overall preview post a few weeks back, but two other amazing things about his career: 1) do you realize this guy has been a star since day 1? His first movie appearance ever was the lead role in Splash in 1984. You look at the IMDB pages of Ford, Will Smith, Tom Cruise; they all have bit parts in small movies before they became stars. Hanks has been a leading man his entire film career – spanning 34 movies over 25 years, incredible.

- 2) Has anyone made more rewatchable movies? Hanks isn’t only the biggest movie star ever, he’s probably the biggest cable star as well. I dare you to flip away when you find Cast Away, Forrest Gump, Turner and Hooch, Big, Saving Private Ryan, Toy Story or The Money Pit on TV. It’s not possible.


JR