'The Grey' looks to steer box office pack

Liam Neeson in "The Grey"Weekend box office prospects want somewhat grey in contrast for the previous three weekends, with Open Road's wolf adventure pic "The Grey" searching to steer individuals while Fox Searchlight tries an ambitious country wide expansion for Oscar-nominated "The Descendants." In contrast, each week up to now this year had one or more film earn north of $20 million, assigned by "The Demon Inside" which first demonstrated Jan. 6 with $33 million.Most bloggers expect Liam Neeson starrer "The Grey" striking around $12 million through Sunday. Summit's "Guy around the Ledge" is forecasted to bow somewhere inside the high single-amounts, then Lionsgate's "One Your hard earned money can buyInch monitoring inside the $5 million-$7 million range.Within the second outing, The brand new the new sony-Screen Gems' "Underworld Awakening" is predicted to lower between 50%-58%, putting the film inside the mix for your weekend's top place. "Awakening" bowed to $25.3 million.Other Oscar-nommed game game titles may even use make hay from the nods."Descendants," at nearly 2,000 locations, sees the biggest rollout of best picture Oscar-nominated photos, which includes the Weinstein Co.'s "The Artist," broadening to 897 playdates, and Paramount's $56 million grosser "Hugo," at 965. Entering its eleventh frame, "The Descendants" has cumed $52 million in your area by Wednesday "The Artist" up to now has totalled $13 million."Descendants" may have a sizable weekend outdoors the States, since it launches in the total 25 offshore areas, including South usa, France, Germany, India, Russia as well as the U.K.Top holiday holdovers, "An Online Detective: A Game Title Title of Shadows" and "Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol," also expand to new areas a couple of days ago. "Holmes," which has cumed $261.3 million worldwide, bows in France, while "Mission," approaching $340 million, opens in China and Italia.B.O. experts maintain that it's unlikely overall box office will match previous years' totals, for example with 2009 when Fox's Neeson sleeper hit "Taken" kickstarted its $145 million-Stateside run this same weekend by getting a dent gross of nearly $25 million.Like "Taken," R-rated "The Grey" should appeal mostly to have an over-25 male audience, though Open Road mentioned the pic saw a present uptick in female interest.Allotted at $20 million, "The Grey" follows several oil-rig bruisers introduced by Neeson, who fight to outlive after their plane crashes inside the Alaskan backwoods. Pic, which reunites Neeson with "A-Team" helmer Joe Carnahan.Open Road mentioned it used several mix-marketing techniques to advertise the pic to Christian along with other ethnic groups. Distrib also became a member of while using Weather Funnel to market "Grey," focusing around the pic's hazardous filming conditions in Alaska. "The Grey" marks only the second release for your distrib, after last year's "Killer Elite," which made $25 million in your area.Also competing for male attention, Summit's "Guy around the Ledge," starring Mike Worthington, Jamie Bell and Erection dysfunction Harris, set you back a reported $48 million. Tax savings and foreign pre-sales reduced the studio's connection with roughly $8.5 million."Guy around the Ledge," along with Lionsgate's "One for the investment,In . would be the initial game game titles to start at the same time following a Lionsgate-Summit merger captured. It's reported that neither company preferred to maneuver their pic simply because they already had spent a lot of the media budget. Katherine Heigl mystery pic "One for the investment,In . using the Jesse Evanovich character, should work as effective female counterprogramming.For "Guy," Summit became a member of with Livingsocial, offering a buy-one-get-one-free date package, while Lionsgate offered half-cost tickets for "Money" via Groupon.Close to the weekend's trio of Oscar pic competitors, Kerbside Attractions' "Albert Nobbs," with three nominations including actress for Glenn Close, bows inside a healthy 246 Stateside locations.Weinstein's "The Iron Lady," which received a deal to find the best actress for Meryl Streep, adds under 200 locations for just about any total 1,244. A week ago, "Iron Lady" showed up inside the top, getting an altered weekend gross of $3.7 million. Pic has cumed $13.9 million in your area since bowing 12 ,. 30. Contact Andrew Stewart at andrew.stewart@variety.com