'Pain & Gain' To Overthrow Tom Cruise's 'Oblivion' At Box Office Ryan J. Downey

This weekend, the Rock and Mark
Wahlberg are staged to outmuscle
Tom Cruise.
"Pain & Gain" puts director Michael
Bay back in his "Bad Boys" buddy
action-comedy zone. Wahlberg and
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson star as
bodybuilders-turned-criminals, based
on real events in the late '90s. The
movie is expected to collect over $20
million this weekend, which should be
enough to beat last weekend's #1
film, "Oblivion."
Wahlberg, Bay, Rob Corddry, Ken
Jeong and Bar Paly all stopped by
MTV's "Sneak Peek Week" leading into
the 2013 MTV Movie Awards, where
Wahlberg told MTV News' Josh
Horowitz he channeled his own
criminal past while making the movie.
"Pain & Gain" should steal the box-
office crown from "Oblivion" with a
$23 million opening, according to The
Los Angeles Times. Exhibitor Relations
box-office analyst Jeff Bock predicted
a similar number, but IMDB.com's
Keith Simanton warned that negative
reviews — the film had a 46 percent
score on Rotten Tomatoes going into
the weekend —
would result in $19 million or $20
million. Bock pointed out that Bay's
$2.6 billion in worldwide ticket sales
for "The Transformers" franchise
(which will next feature Wahlberg)
was a smart move on the heels of his
only true financial disappointment,
"The Island."
"With 'Pain & Gain,' Bay isn't straying
too far from his original 'Bad Boys'
formula that put him on the map: a
low budget R-rated action/comedy
featuring a bad-ass tag-team," he
said. "But instead of Will Smith and
Martin Lawrence — who are far from
boys behaving badly lately — he
recruited Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne
Johnson. Both actors had moderate
misfires earlier this year with
Johnson's 'Snitch' and Wahlberg's
'Broken City,' however the hilarity of
the Miami muscle-head scene
combined with Macklemore's 'Thrift
Store' jam should be enough to hype
audiences into punching their
tickets."
Add to that the massive success of
relatively recent hits like "Ted" and
"Fast Five" and "Pain & Gain" will do
just fine.
Despite a large ensemble cast that
includes Robert DeNiro, Katherine
Heigl, Diane Keaton, Robin Williams
and Susan Sarandon, "The Big
Wedding" (the weekend's only other
wide release) is expected to debut in
the $10 million range. "When you're
selling tickets two for one on your
official movie website, you know
you've got major issues," said Bock of
the poorly-reviewed flick, a remake of
a 2006 French film. "Sadly, when you
resort to this kind of tomfoolery
you've already admitted no one has a
clue that your film is coming out this
weekend."
Speaking of awareness, will recent
headlines have any effect on Reese
Witherspoon's "Mud" as it opens in
363 theaters? "Yes," offered
Simanton. "It gives editors better
punchlines on the headlines of their
'Mud' articles."
Ray Subers at BoxOfficeMojo.com
predicted $20 million for "Pain &
Gain." Overall, this weekend will likely
be a quiet one as audiences brace for
the higher profile fare coming up," he
wrote on the site. "Iron Man 3"
should open with $160 million come
May 3.