ShowBIZ Data has box office estimates for Friday, and it looks like Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer will score an easy #1 this weekend with its $22.7 million estimated gross for Friday (including Thursday midnight screenings). This is $1.5 million greater than the opening of Fantastic Four two years ago, though with its PG rating, it might be slightly more kidcentric and possibly not as frontloaded. Still, one can expect an opening in the range of the first movie's $56 million, give or take a million.
Warner Bros.' Nancy Drew didn't fare nearly as well, making roughly $2.8 million on Friday and pointing to an opening weekend below $8 million, another movie made for teen girls that didn't score well with that target audience.
As far as the rest of the movies, Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Thirteen took a significant 55% plunge on its second Friday to gross an estimated $5.9 million, though it should pick up business over the weekend for a strong second place in the range of $19 million. The big story of the summer is Universal's hit comedy Knocked Up, which added another $4.5 million yesterday and should come close to a total gross of $90 million by weekend's end. Check back tomorrow for the full box office report on how these and other movies fared over the weekend.
