Box-office pundits, who have been making way-off-the-mark conservative predictions during the past few weeks, are not loosening up their restrained approach to the latest batch of movies, including The Grey, Man on a Ledge, One for the Money and The Descendants , which is finally getting a wide release. They agree that the winner is likely to be the Liam Neesen starrer, The Grey , but it's not likely to earn much more than $18-20 million, they say. Man on a Ledge is expected to debut with around $7-10 million and probably place fourth, behind last week's Underworld Awakening and Red Tails. Predicting what One for the Money will do is a bit trickier. It was not screened in advance for critics, and Lionsgate signed a deal with Groupon that will put an unknown number of discounted ducats into play. It's always tricky counting revenue from discounted ticket sales, but it's especially difficult when it comes to the Groupon deal, in which Lionsgate is actually making up the difference between what theaters are asking for the tickets and what Groupon is selling them for. Marcus Theatres, a Midwest chain is so upset with the deal that it is refusing to show the movie in any of its venues.
27/01/2012
