After two straight weeks of fending off different trios of new releases, American Sniper will finally have to give its box office crown to another movie. It’s not the new sci-fi extravaganza, Jupiter Ascending, though. Instead, The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water will win.
Sniper had a good run, but it finished its third weekend with $30.7 million, so if it drops another 30 percent, it will only make around $21 million this weekend.
Spongebob should have no trouble topping that. It’s the first time Spongebob and his pals are on the big screen in over a decade, when the original The Spongebob Squarepants Movie hit theaters. (That’s probably why the new movie isn’t being called Spongebob 2.)
According to Box Office Mojo, the film is being shown at over 3,600 theaters. It is different from the past Spongebob outing, as Paramount decided to bring the characters on land with CGI animation. It’s looking for a $40 million opening, at least.
Two more films are opening this weekend - the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending and Legendary’s Seventh Son. Jupiter will probably have a better weekend, since it’s opening in 3D and in IMAX, plus it stars Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum.
Jupiter was supposed to be released last summer and cost Warner Bros. $175 million to make. Variety suggests that the film will open in the low $20 million-range.
Seventh Son is another movie that has been delayed. It was originally supposed to come out in February 2013, when Legendary was still based at Warner Bros, which eventually dropped it. When Legendary moved over to Universal, Universal ended up with the job of releasing it. If it earns over $10 million, it will be a complete shock.
image of ‘Spongebob’ stars Tom Kenny & Antonio Banderas courtesy of Roger Wong/INFphoto.com