It’s more guestimation fun as Ice Age and Spider-Man open big and The Dark Knight Rises takes itself high up the chart after 3 days of takings.

Right then, for those playing along here is a link to the latest spreadsheet with how everyone’s guesses are panning out and of particular note to me this time round is Jason Farrell’s prediction of Rock of Ages coming last proving to be pretty much correct in one of the more surprising turn of events for me in this game, and it must be said that Jordan and Brad’s predictions that Ice Age 4 would be in the very top rankings look to be panning out pretty well thus far. By the end of the game, I’d also say it looks like Prometheus will be a little lower than most if not all predict as Brave and TDKR in particular below it so far look to leapfrog when all is said and done.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES – Worldwide:  $286,038,896

Its taken three days for TDKR to make this amount of money. Three days. Now for sure, Avengers looked more impressive but what is of great import to remember is how 3D ticket prices boosted that films box office and in a way made this game slightly unfair, though Avengers has done far better than even the most optimistic head would have predicted beforehand. The question for TDKR now is how well it holds up. While in terms of international box office, it doesn’t have much competition until mid-August, The Avengers also didn’t have a major sporting event starting only a week after it. What effect the Olympics will have on its future box office is a real question though I’d also contend that the fact that Olympic events will be on constantly will mean that some events aside, it won’t have the “must see” aspect to it that much of Euro 2012 did. In all honesty, I can’t see this beating the total set by The Avengers and the release date is as big a factor here as the 2D nature of it, though weekday play could be more solid due to school holidays.

ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT – Worldwide: $545,492,179

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is one of those films that looking back on it you wonder just how the hell it made the money it did. Despite not feeling like a particularly beloved franchise, this one took nearly $900 million worldwide, a huge amount even for a family CG film and this latest installment could well come close, if perhaps not matching the amount. With weeks of school holidays left worldwide yet, this series of films is a real formidable beast and quite the cashcow for Fox who don’t have all that much in the way of family product, though the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid will look to make solid if unspectacular coin in the next couple of weeks.I’m thinking this will leapfrog MIB 3 when all is said and done and may even get past Spider-Man to take the #3 spot which will still be a cracking result given what would be in front of it. Another one is virtually guaranteed so expect more talk about one of these in 3 years or so.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN – Worldwide: $618,198,265

The red-headed step-child of the comic-book films this summer basically looks to do what was expected of it, being a performer which makes a shed load of money without really making the impact the last Raimi one did (though it’s a damn sight better). The aim here was to be a successful relaunch which would justify future sequels and that’s what this performance has done. It’ll likely be more profitable than 2007′s Spider-Man 3 though it must be said, the production budget for this being significantly less while currently sat at over two-thirds of the final international take of that film. TDKR will have eaten into the box office for this something rotten over the last few days, and will continue to do so, but again this is a film which will do well during the summer weekdays and will continue to eat its way into the high hundreds of millions, with a sequel looking to potentially do better than that in 2 years time.

Overall, there’s not that much to report elsewhere. Prometheus will look to get past Battleship soon, with Brave then getting past Prometheus as that film looks to have a significant boost to its haul with a wider European rollout in a few weeks time once the Olympics are done and dusted. The films at the bottom end look to essentially stay there with the aforementioned Ages and Abe Lincoln looking to take the bottom two spots as they have them now.

We will be back with another update in a few weeks time when we see how the Olympics affected TDKR, how Brave managed with more countries to play in and how The Bourne Legacy does against the action might of The Expendables 2 in their opening weekends.