Which movie will own the highest opening gross during its first weekend release in May 2009?

Nice question. Let's see:

The animated sci-fi piece Terra opens against the much anticipated X-Men. 'Nuff said.

X-Men opens on May 1 against the McConaughey/Garner rom-com Ghosts, the chick flick Home, and Terra (along with the second week of the young-male-drawing Fighting and the hot-babes-all-around thriller Obsessed). Not intense competition for the X-men crowd, but still something.

Ghosts also opens against X-men. Again: 'nuff said.

Star Trek opens the following weekend against pretty weak competition: the small Mos Def comedy Next Day Air and the odd drama Adoration.

Angels & Demons might do okay, as it's got only the Jennifer Aniston rom-com Management to deal with, but Angels just doesn't have the cachet of Star Trek or X-Men.

Terminator, which opens by itself on a Thursday, will be up against the Wayan's no-doubt-cerebral Dance Flick and the rom-com Easy Virtue. Those might not steal much from Terminator, but without Arnold or Linda or any others from the original cast, how many folks are waiting to see this piece?

Drag Me To Hell looks interesting in a Stephen King kind of way, but non-slasher horror doesn't do all that well these days (see The Haunting in Connecticut), and it's up against the crime drama Brothers Bloom and the animated-old-men cartoon Up.

So, my take: the battle for top box office draw in May is really only between X-Men and Star Trek...and I think Trek may just eke out the win.

Surely, a lot of people has been waiting for a sequel of Da Vinci code, Angles & Demons. I am expecting so.

Just look at this weekend with Fast & Furious instead off predicted 44 Mio the movie made 72.

@sql good arguments - I agree that it should be between Jackman and an unknown Capt Kirk - my bet is on Wolverine

X-Man III (2006) starting weekend US$ 102,75 Mio my estimate for Wolverine is 80-120 Mio
Star Trek Nemsis (2002) starting weekend US$ 18,50 Mio
Star Trek Insurection (1998) starting weekend US$ 22,05 Mio
Star Trek has no stars but much action (less scifi) and the trailer looks good my estimate 40-60 Mio

Star Trek has few stars, that's true. But I don't know that it's wise to compare this version with the previous ones. And you obviously can't compare 1998 grosses against 2009 grosses without adjusting for inflation:

1) This is an entirely different cast and crew. Gone are the tired (read: old) TV folks Stewart, Shatner, Frakes, Spiner, Burton, etc. The new version features a much younger and more dynamic cast--and younger, for right or wrong, means more ticket sales;
2) This is directed by the up-with-the-times JJ Abrams (Lost, Cloverfield) (Quick: who directed Nemesis? Insurrection? First Contact?)
3) It's been 7 years since the last ST came out, where they'd been averaging about 2.5 years between releases through the 80s and 90s, and often absence makes the heart grow fonder;
4) Much bigger budget this time around (which, true, doesn't always translate into bigger box office);
5) Much larger promotional and marketing push this time around;
6) Heavy production/directorial assistance by Steven Spielberg;
7) As noted above, ST opens against only a minor comedy and the strange little Adoration, while X-Men opens against a little more competition.

If I were to give numbers, I'd say your 40-60 for ST seems incredibly low; I'd put Star Trek at $110-115, and X-Men at $100-105. Like I said, it may be close, but my money--well, most of it--is on Star Trek. :-)

What about Transformers? Seems like it should beat the pants off some of these (if not all).

sorry, didn't see the may release... my bad.

Back to post 1: "X-Men opens on May 1 against the McConaughey/Garner rom-com Ghosts, the chick flick Home, and Terra (along with the second week of the young-male-drawing Fighting and the hot-babes-all-around thriller Obsessed). Not intense competition for the X-men crowd, but still something."

The derby at boxoffice:
1. Wolverine $ 92.0
2 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past $20.0
3 Obsessed $12.5
7 Fighting $5.1
9 Battle for Terra $4.0

ST will have to compete with Wolverine, Ghosts and Next Day Air.
By the way Wolverine is released in 4099 theaters and ST in (about) 3500.

We will have two interesting weekends. On my way to Wolverine (I don´t count).

Hey, so my crystal ball isn't always so crystalline... :-)

FWIW, I watched X-Men yesterday (opening day). What a disappointment! Some great scenes and some funny lines--as expected--but they were mostly early on. I won't say it was quite as bad as Watchmen, but it does have that same build-up-the-excitement-in-the-first-20-minutes-then-let-them-down-slowly-over-the-remaining-90. The first 20 featured the highly entertaining--at least to me--Ryan Reynolds, while that last hour-and-a-half seemed to consist mainly of Wolverine and Sabertooth circling each other and snarling. (Yes, I'm exaggerating, but not that much; watch it yourself, and see if you don't agree.) Those who've watched a few movies in their life will find themselves saying what the characters are going to say much of the time, so cliched is the dialog, which always drives me nuts. Also, surprisingly for a movie this large, some of the CGI was of fairly low quality. And so on. And so forth.

The film will make a lot of money. no doubt, but I don't know that it will make the huge numbers producers are hoping for. :-(

Watched it and I agree. They should have hired Singer for 10 Mio. or Ratner for 5. Mio. It really seamed like they thoght Jackman is X-Men and nobody else.

There are some directors unable to get the atmosphere of the previous films (for Star Trek this might be good) and I definitely missed Brian Cox as Stryker). IMO only one/two directors should film this kind of franchises. Harray Potter is another example with the failed Part IV.

Friday estimates Wolverine 35 Mio Ghosts 5,81 Mio

From my googling, it looks like $87M is the consensus for X-men - though there was an earlier estimate of $92M.

Probably just me, but I'm looking forward more to Star Trek than I did X-men, perhaps because I knew pretty much what to expect of X-men, whereas I'm interested to see the new take on ST. And just a thought - this could be a kick-off for a new TV ST series - they remake movies, why not update the TV series?

Star Trek lost 7 Mio to advanced screenings - only 24 Mio estimated for friday. Wolverine leads by 10,43 Mio.

Star Trek $76.5M: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118003418.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

The race for May weekend blockbuster at the moment:

Battle for Terra
Wolverine 85,058,003<7b>
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past 15,411,434
Star Trek 75,204,289

Terra 1,082,064