Weekend Box Office Preview: That Sinking Feeling

Sacha Baron Cohen has held court in theaters as The Dictator (reviews) since Wednesday; Taylor Kitsch leads the charge in Battleship (reviews) as it finally comes ashore in the US; Learn What to Expect When You're Expecting (reviews) from an all star cast.

None of the new films are expected to topple The Avengers as the top movie

Pamela McClintock of THR:

Universal and Hasbro Entertainment's Battleship opens this weekend at the domestic box office but the big-budget gamble faces an uphill battle in transforming into a successful summer tentpole.

With Disney and Marvel Studios' The Avengers still dominating the marketplace, box office observers believe that film could earn as much as $60 million in its third weekend, while Battleship may only gross $35 million to $40 million after costing north of $209 million to produce, excluding a pricey marketing campaign.

The record-shattering Avengers will cross the $400 million mark on Friday after only 14 days of play in North America, breaking the 18-day record set by The Dark Knight. Globally, the film had earned $1.54 billion as of Thursday, the eighth best showing of all time (many believe the pic will end up at No. 3 with a worldwide gross of $1.35 to $1.4 billion).

Battleship, based on the classic board game, is largely done with its run at the international box office, where it earned roughly $220 million, a solid but unspectacular number for a major event pic and putting pressure on the film's domestic performance. Nevertheless, it is Universal's top grossing movie ever overseas.

Directed by Peter Berg, Battleship headlines Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Brooklyn Decker and Alexander Skarsgard and is a sister project to Hasbro's Transformers franchise at Paramount.

There are two other new nationwide releases this weekend at the domestic box office: Lionsgate's ensemble comedy What to Expect When You're Expecting, based on the bestselling self-help book, and Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator, which got an early start in opening Wednesday.

What to Expect is predicted to open in the $17 million to $20 million range, while The Dictator should post a five-day opening gross in the $20 million to $23 million range, putting it behind the debuts of Baron Cohen's Borat ($26 million) and Bruno ($30 million).

The Dictator grossed a so-so $4.2 million on Wednesday domestically, including $650,000 in Tuesday evening and midnight shows, but is off to a notably stronger start overseas, where it grossed roughly the same amount ($4.2 million) from only nine markets on Wednesday, including $1.6 million in the U.K.