For the last week I have been working on a major overhaul to the backend systems of RopeofSilicon and it has caused me to feel a little out of touch with the world of movies recently. The election on Tuesday was another wrench in the works making it feel like a mid-week holiday only to have Friday sneak up on me out of nowhere. So here I sit on a late Friday night/early Saturday morning and finally feel like I am catching up only to realize the weekend box-office is a blur to me. I wrote the reviews and expected Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa to land big, but the numbers mean nothing to me. However, I think if I focus hard enough I can guide us through Steve Mason’s early Friday box-office estimates and then take a nice break before getting up tomorrow and starting all over again.
Starting at the top we have Madagascar 2, which Mason is projecting may become one of the all-time top five grossing pics from DreamWorks Animation. The film made an estimated $17 million on Friday and will surely do well this weekend when the kiddies won’t be in school and the parents won’t want to deal with them. Mason predicts the flick will end the weekend with over $57 million. However, if it is going to crack the DWA top five it is going to have to do better than the $193.5 million the first Madagascar made, and if it does that DreamWorks will be popping champagne because it means they have yet another massive franchise on their hands. While it won’t do the $440+ million Shrek 2 made or even the $322+ million Shrek 3 made, it won’t be a bad return on investment since I am assuming these successful kiddy animated flicks do boatloads in merchandise and then on home video.
Coming in second on Friday and seemingly for the weekend will be Universal’s very funny Role Models, a film I am glad people went to see because I thought it was hilarious. The flick opened to an estimated $6 million on Friday and Mason has it hitting just under $16 million for the weekend, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it bump up a little higher considering I can’t see it getting any kind of bad word of mouth.
The other new notable opener this weekend was the musical comedy Soul Men starring Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes. I did see a couple of good reviews, including this ridiculous poster (Mark S. Allen of CBS is now on my Never Read list), but the 40% Rotten Tomatoes rating pretty much sealed the deal on this one, meaning the target audience was going to go no matter what, but expecting anything more than that just wasn’t going to happen. The flick earned $2 million on Friday and is expected to turn that into approximately $6 million for the weekend.
Still holding strong is Clint Eastwood’s Changeling with another $2.1 million for Friday and in some good news for Kevin Smith fans (myself included), Zack and Miri Make a Porno did rather well this week and is only looking at something like a 37% drop from its rather disappointing opening weekend with just under $2 million on Friday and expected $6+ million weekend, which would bolster its cume to just over $20 million. The question remains, will this flick manage to top Smith’s highest grossing flick, which is Dogma at $30.6 million? I know in speaking with him he had really high hopes for the film and no matter what happens it doesn’t look like it will be doing any kind of $50+ million box-office, which really is too bad. I was rooting for this one even though didn’t like it that much.
I guess I should also mention High School Musical 3: Senior Year since it did actually have a Friday-over-Friday increase of 56% after kids decided to trick-or-treat last weekend giving the film $2.62 million on Friday on its way to an anticipated $9 million for the weekend. It seems to me making a Disney tween film and having a successful animated franchise is damn near like printing money. This makes me wonder what the hell I am doing running this measly website.
You can check out the complete list of early Friday estimates below and stay tuned for Laremy’s recap on Sunday. He is currently down in LA-LA land after watching Twilight last night. Wanna know what he told me about it? Sorry, can’t do it and I am not sure you want to hear anyway. Later!
- Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $17 million
- Role Models (Universal) – $6 million
- High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney) – $2.62 million
- Changeling (Universal) – $2.1 million
- Soul Men (MGM) – $2 million
- Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Weinstein) – $1.9 million
- Saw V (Lionsgate) – $1.5 million
- Beverly Hills Chihuahua (Disney) – $875,000
- The Secret Life of Bees (Fox Searchlight) – $825,000
- Max Payne (20th Century Fox) – $775,000
