Helloooooo readers! I’ve been added on as a contributor here at Cup of Joe to discuss the box office. Studying and analyzing how much money films pull in has been a hobby of mine for a little over a decade now. My, how time flies. That said, let’s dive right into my predictions for what’s shaping up to be a pretty unremarkable weekend.

The Expendables 2 topped the charts last week with a 28.6 million debut. While still good, the result surprised me, as I expected it to top the 34.8 million opening of its predecessor. The additions of several more big name action stars, as well as expanded roles for Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, led me to believe the sequel might debut more in the 40 million range. Still, 28 million is a solid debut and we might see an Expendables 3 yet. Given how weak this weekend’s openers figure to be, I’m thinking the Expendables 2 will come in at runner up, with a sizable decrease down to about 12.5 million.

Taking the crown away from Stallone and Crew will be indie darling Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Fresh off a strong performance in The Dark Knight Rises, JGL is riding high right now. He picks his projects wisely, alternating between the big blockbusters and the smaller films that let him keep his indie cred. His new film, Premium Rush, is decidedly on the indie side of the spectrum, which limits it potential, but on a late August weekend with little other competition, I don’t see why the well reviewed (76% at Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing) film couldn’t debut in the neighborhood of 14 million.

The other wide release of the weekend, Hit and Run, figures to debut decidedly smaller. For inexplicable reasons, it opened on Wednesday and only managed $625,000. This isn’t the type of movie people will rush out to see, so I think it will do better over the weekend, but even still, I think it will only open to about 4 million.

Though it’s already been in release for six weeks, 2016 Obama’s America expands this weekend to over 1000 theatres. It did manage over a million dollars last weekend from only 169 theatres and, with the looming election on most Americans’ minds, this is the perfect time for such a release. Even still, documentaries and their ilk rarely do particularly well, especially something as blatantly biased as this film. Let’s call for about five million, shall we?

Among the holdovers, The Bourne Legacy figures to do the best and hopefully stabilize a bit after last weekend’s 55% drop. I think it will right the ship a bit and gross around ten million. As a well-reviewed children’s movie, ParaNorman should hold well, so I’m also predicting around 10 million for the stop action animation film. The Campaign should also stabilize and should end up around 8.5 million while I expect Sparkle to fall off the face of the earth and crash down to about 3.5 million. The Odd Life of Timothy Green was never expected to be a big hit, and I’m thinking it will make about 6 million, which should also be around where Hope Springs lands. Finally, The Dark Knight Rises should make around 6.5 million, which would put it just outside the top ten domestic blockbusters of all time.

I haven’t done formal box office predictions in months, so forgive me if I’m a little rusty. Here are my predictions laid out in easy to digest list format.

1. Premium Rush: 14 million

2. The Expendables 2: 12.5 million

3. The Bourne Legacy: 10 million

4. ParaNorman: 10 million

5. The Campaign: 8.5 million

6. The Dark Knight Rises: 6.5 million

7. The Odd Life of Timothy Green: 6 million

8. Hope Springs: 6 million

9. 2016 Obama’s America: 5 million

10. Hit and Run: 4 million

I’ll be back on Sunday or Monday to wrap up how the weekend went and see how rusty I really am at predicting these things.