CARRIE VS. GRAVITY — WHO’LL WIN?

Box office prognosticators are hedging their bets about which film will come out ahead at the box office this weekend, but most of them are predicting that it will wind up being a tight race between Gravity, which has held on to the No. 1 spot for two weeks, and the horror-film remake Carrie. Each one is expected to earn around $25-30 million, although Sony is predicting only around $20 million for Carrie. Two other films opening this weekend are expected to tank — Escape Plan, starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and The Fifth Estate, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Escape Plan, the pundits say, should wind up with around $8-10 million, while Estate will be lucky to earn half that amount. Almost certain to come in at No. 1 on a per-theater basis will be Fox Searchlight’s 12 Years a Slave, which debuts in 18 theaters. The film is on every film critic’s top-ten list for the year, with several predicting that it should come away with the Oscar for best film.