Box Office CHALLENGE and Weekend Preview MEMORIAL DAY

There are only two new releases worth mentioning this weekend. They will most likely be #1 and #2, but it is a crapshoot as to which will be which!

Will the R-rated HANGOVER 2 and the return of the WOLFPACK be enough to keep the FURIOUS FIVE and the chosen one, PO, from taking the weekend? The screen count is comparable (PANDA: 3,925 VS. HANGOVER: 3,615), but Kung-Fu Panda is playing in both 2-D and 3-D, so of course there would be more. Also, Panda 2 does have an IMAX version, but it seems as though Pirates is holding onto the IMAX screens and that Panda will be hitting IMAX next week.

Other X-Factors?  Both PANDA and HANGOVER were released today.  It is essentially a 5-day movie weekend.  I will be curious to see how Box Office Mojo ranks it all out, but you can guarantee it is going to be a bog box office weekend.

Here were last week’s results:

Weekend Box Office Results

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides $90.1 million

2. Bridesmaids $20.8 million

3. Thor $15.4 million

4. Fast Five $10.5 million

5. Priest $4.7 million

6. Rio $4.6 million

7. Jumping the Broom $3,7 million

8. Something Borrowed $3.5 million

9. Water for Elephants $2.1 million

10. Madea’s Big Happy Family $956,000

Since there has been fairly little response to the contest…I will keep the whole message relatively short. Here are my picks, and the rules and ways to enter follow after…

REEL RHINO PICKS FOR THE WEEKEND

1. Kung-Fu Panda 2

2. The Hangover 2

3. Pirates 4

4. Bridesmaids

5. Thor

Bridesmaids and Hangover 2 would make a hell of a double feature. I will catch up with you soon…

REEL RHINO’S BOX OFFICE CHALLENGE

THE RULES: Scoring…for every correct guess, you get 3 points. For every guess within one pick of the movie’s weekend slot gets you 2 points. Finally, two picks away gets you 1 point.

Yeah…if you can’t figure out who is the winner, it isn’t really a contest, right? Any ties will be determined first by whoever has the highest correct answer or series of correct answers. If the tie persists, the winner will be determined by whoever submitted their picks first…yes, you are correct…I have the home field advantage. Deal with it.

The format will be simple with each week’s challenge. I will post the week’s opening films, the # of screens the film is playing (when known), and the RottenTomatoes.com score, if it has one at the time of the post. I am going to omit listing those movies opening in extreme limited release, because they won’t have the seats to fight for one of the top five slots. Fair enough, agreed?

That will be followed by the top ten from last week. “Choose wisely.” Remember that German commander in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade… it didn’t work out so well for him, learn from his lesson my friends.

The final segment of each week’s contest will be me, offering my picks.

You may submit your picks in one of three ways:

1. Enter your picks in the comments field of this post at http://www.blinkinblogs.com/

2. Enter your picks in the comments field of this post at http://reelrhino.com/

3. E-mail your picks to ReelRhino@gmail.com

I will compile the week’s entries and post the winners at both BlinkinBlogs and ReelRhino as soon as possible, but hopefully by Monday evening at the latest.

THE PRIZE: For now, my friends, in the humble beginnings of the BOX OFFICE CHALLENGE, the prize is this: the champion of the week will have their selection of any film, which I will watch and review on both sites. Don’t believe me? See also: http://reelrhino.blogspot.com/2011/04/biebers-never-say-never-redux-watch.html

Yep…that happened.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL AND MAKE YOUR PICKS SOON!

Reel Rhino