Pacific Rim Projected for Monster Midnight Showings

Pacific Rim will generate over $3 million and possibly as much as World War Z's $3.6 or more at [...]

Pacific Rim & Grown Ups 2 Box Office

Pacific Rim

will generate over $3 million and possibly as much as World War Z's $3.6 or more at midnight shows, according to box office estimates provided to Deadline. That jives with earlier reports that the film is tracking better on Fandango than the Brad Pitt zombie apocalypse drama--which did well enough to merit a sequel being almost immediately greenlit--was doing at this same point in its opening weekend. The film, which opens this week against Grown Ups 2 but which also faces solid competition from last week's box office champ Despicable Me 2 (if it were to take around a 50% hit, that movie would still bring in around $40 million and be a significant factor at the weekend box office), has a lot of people--fanboys and not--rooting for it to succeed. The film has taken the #1 spot in the Asian market with ease, but reportedly started its international roll-out with an inauspicious debut at #4 in Australia, where it was beaten out by Despicable Me 2, The Heat and Monsters University (only The Heat was also a first-week release). If the analysts at Box Office Mojo are right (they tend to be the most reliable in an admittedly unreliable and unpredictable field), the film won't quite do World War Z numbers, but will gross around $46 million, enough to keep it at the top of the box office throughout the weekend in spite of strong ($35-$45 million) weekends from both Despicable Me 2 and Grown Ups 2. Grown Ups 2 has also opened a bit stronger than expected and, while it's not doing quite Pacific Rim numbers, it looks like the film brought in about $2 million at midnight screenings in the U.S., in spite of not having 3D or IMAX to fall back on. Overall, the weekend is looking like it will be a strong one, with at least two movies delivering at least $40 million each.

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