Dwayne Johnson Is About To Rock Out With A Lot Of Cash

Dwayne Johnson has had surprisingly few opportunities to headline movies on his own, instead typically being part of an ensemble cast in Get Smart, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and the Fast & Furious movies. His few times being the sole focus point of a films marketing (Snitch, Faster and Hercules) have ranged from underwhelming to OK. San Andreas will try to buck that trend a bit, and it may just do solid enough business in its opening week.

Helping San Andreas flourish compared to those three aforementioned movies is that this ones marketing has emphasized notable large-scale disaster visuals such as a giant boat being tossed around a populated city by enormous waves. The emphasis on Dwayne Johnsons dedication to saving people, as well as his family, during this momentous earthquake have similarly helped the film create its own identity. And while he isn't as charming and humorous in ads as he is in his most successful movies, Dwayne Johnson still emits a more likable presence in the trailers than he did in, say, the grim posters for Faster. It could have trouble crossing $40 million this weekend, but even if it doesn't, it won't be far off from that mark.

Meanwhile, another star-studded affair, Aloha, opens this weekend and should greatly underwhelm. It's pretty apparent that Sony has given up on the movie, with posters and TV ads solely selling the big name actors in it and not any sort of memorable plot points or gags. Even with Bradley Coopers gigantic success with American Sniper this past Winter, I'm gonna be shocked if this makes more than $15 million. Hell, I honestly think I'm being too generous with my $12 million opening weekend projection.

Holdovers are certainly gonna dip hard this weekend, as is customary for all films after Memorial Day weekend. Last weekends top movie, Tomorrowland, will probably lose just under or over 50% for the frame, while there's a good chance Pitch Perfect 2 will make more cash this weekend than Disneys newest family film. The other new release from last weekend, Poltergeist, will plummet hard this frame, as is customary for horror films in their second weekend.

Below, you can see my opening weekend and final gross projections for this weekends new releases, as well as my predictions for this weekends Top 5.

1) San Andreas: $40 million
2) Pitch Perfect 2: $17 million
3) Tomorrowland: $16 million
4) Mad Max: Fury Road: $12.6 million
5) Aloha: $12 million