Neil Burger’s “Divergent” Might Not Open with Projected $60 Million

Lionsgate’s “Divergent” directed by Neil Burger, who is best known for the film “The Illusionist”, seems to be releasing at the lower end of some estimates, with initial proceeds showing the teen-oriented sci-fi film may not reach current expectations of a $60 million-plus home launch.

According to other calculations, “Divergent” would take around $23 million at nearly four thousand cinemas on Friday — counting $5 million from late shows Thursday — and finish with almost fifty million dollars by the closing stages of the weekend.

This still indicates that the sci-fi adventure will take over the weekend box office, as forecasted, in the midst of huge support from the desired targeted fan-base of juvenile males and females, though it’s quite difficult to forecast how well it is grabbing the attention of other types of audiences. Reviews have been nothing special with around forty percent recent rating on the Rotten Tomatoes aggregation site.

The expected national launch for this film is the 2nd best of this year, dropping behind only comedy animated film “The Lego Movie”. Shailene Woodley (known for The Descendants), the lead actress of the film, has been very lively in promotional campaigns.

Friday estimates also demonstrated a considerable tumble for Disney’s “Muppets Most Wanted,” finishing with $20 million, which is $5 less than previous weekend. Investors put the shares of Lionsgate reserve on the market, as it took a tumble of almost 8%, falling to $2.35 and finished with $27.60, which is considered the lowest finish since July previous year. It’s worth dropped by 25% since November and Lionsgate officials have been trying to modify Wall Street’s forecasts for “Divergent” in upcoming weeks.

James Bobin’s “Muppets Most Wanted” starring Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell, and Tina Fey is also expected to fall well short of the launch weekend of 2011′s “The Muppets” that had earned almost $30 million over its first weekend. The 3rd weekend of comedy animation film “Mr. Peabody and Sherman” seemed probable to top all other films with nearly $3 million, boosting the overall profit around $80 million worldwide.

The Harold Cronk’s faith-based movie “God’s Not Dead” did decently on its opening day with $2.7 million on Friday at around eight hundred theaters.

What are your views? Which movie did you like the most?