Early handicapping of Skyfall’s U.S. box office prospects

007 will find those mirrors of limited use when dealing with the box office power of The Twilight Saga vampires

Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond film, is still in production but we decided to look ahead to the U.S. box office landscape the 007 movie will face in November.

Our early guess: No threats to the rear or at the front lines, but Skyfall will face tough competition a week after its Nov. 9, 2012 opening in the U.S.

We looked at THIS SCHEDULE on The Numbers Web site. On Nov. 2, the line-up looks like this:

November 2 Red Dawn Open Road
November 2 The Guilt Trip Paramount Pictures
November 2 Wreck-It Ralph Walt Disney Pictures
November 2 Seven Psychopaths (Limited) CBS Films

Red Dawn is a remake of a 1984 movie <a.directed by John Milius about teenagers in the U.S. heartland defending themselves again invading Soviet soldiers. The 2012 remake is directed by Dan Bradley, second-unit director on a couple of Jason Bourne movies and 2008’s Quantum of Solace. According to the IMDB.com entry, the villains in the remake are North Korean soldiers. The Guilt Trip stars Seth Rogan and Barbra Streisand. Wreck-It Falph, ,a>based on its IMDB.com entry doesn’t look like a huge box-office hit. Seven Psychopaths has a cast that includes two former 007 actors (Christopher Walken and Olga Kurylenko) but the fact it’s in limited release suggests it won’t be a ginormous hit at the box office.

On the weekend of Nov. 9? Besides Skyfall, there’s <a.Anna Karenina, a remake of a remake of a 1935 movie with Greta Garbo. And that’s it.

Ah, but the big challenge lies a week later, Nov. 16, with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II, the latest in the series of films about young vampires that’s been a huge hit in the U.S.

To summarize: It doesn’t appear there’s a huge hit immediately before Skyfall’s U.S. opening, and not much competition for the 007 film’s first weekend. That is, unless major studios change their schedules, Skyfall likely will be the No. 1 movie on opening weekend. At the same time, Skyfall will be “one and done” the following weekend as The Twilight Saga takes over. Anyway, we’ll see in five months.