Welcome to the Ham Sandwich Report

There's an old episode of "Law and Order" where Jack McCoy is in the familiar position of justifying his case to professional grumpy-guy Adam Schiff. He tries to explain that tenuous circumstantial evidence was sufficient to convince the grand jury to indict the accused. Schiff rebuffs him by saying, "You can get the grand jury to indict a ham sandwich."

It seems to me likewise that during the portions of the cinematic calendar not dominated by wizards, superheroes, Will Smith, and Will Smith as a superhero that the studios can release any movie and with the muscle of their marketing departments guarantee a $15 million opening weekend. These movies I like to refer to as the ham sandwiches.

My co-worker "Client #9" (name changed to protect his identity) and I amuse ourselves on dreary winter Fridays during ham sandwich season predicting the opening weekend of these mostly drab slabs of cold cuts and Wonder Bread. We've gotten pretty good, so I decided to up the ante and start tracking our predictions against the so-called experts.

The first contestant in this buffet of lunch meats is Leatherheads. First, the experts: the LA Times calls for $16 million; Variety projects $19 million. Variety bases its claim on the fact that the movie has been tracking well with the nostalgia set but that the oldies don't see movies on opening weekend - evidently it takes a while to warm up those Rascal Scooters.

Client #9 predicts $18.5. A solid ham sandwich and a bag of chips.

I was initially enthusiastic because the girlfriend asked me if I wanted to see it, which certainly isn't the case with most sports movies. But crunching the numbers, I couldn't find anything to bolster that enthusiasm past Client #9's $18 million. Invincible, Friday Night Lights and Glory Road seem to be the best analog for the sports angle and they opened with $17 mil, $17 mil, and $20 mil respectively (and FNL certainly skewed younger than Leatherheads).

For the fairer sex, George Clooney hasn't been in a romantic comedy since One Fine Day, which opened with a paltry $6 mil (and was pummelled by Beavis and Butthead Do America). O Brother, Where Art Thou? would seem to be a good indicator, being a period dramedy, but that movie was slow-rolled and so doesn't have the opening numbers. And George Clooney has squandered whatever goodwill he had with female audiences with his recent string of message films, all of which underperformed.

Renee Zellweger has more experience with the romantic comedy, but her resume there is Jerry Maguire; huge success, Bridget Jones; huge success, and then flop, flop, flop. No ham sandwiches they. Her best analog in fact might be Cinderella Man, not a comedy to be sure, but a period sports movie that performed well. Would you like to guess the opening weekend? $18 million.

So, factoring in a little inflation, and the remaining enthusiasm I have from my hopefully bellwether sweetheart, I'm calling for a $21 million value meal - a ham sandwich, a bag of chips and a fountain drink.

LA Times: $16 million
Variety: $19 million
Client #9: $18.5 million
Me: $21 million

Check back on Monday for the results.