The Friday box-office estimates are in and it’s a close race at the top with Fox’s Unstoppable edging out DreamWorks’s Megamind at the moment, but if history tells us anything, the family toon typically performs better over Saturday and Sunday, which means Megamind is likely to take the top spot for a second weekend in a row.
Opening with $8.1 million, the well-reviewed Unstoppable should amass approximately $24 million for the weekend, a number that doesn’t necessarily bode well for the film’s profitability. If you’ll remember, Unstoppable had some serious bumps along the way to getting made as Denzel Washington was on and off the project over salary disputes and ultimately the once $107 million budgeted feature was trimmed down to $100 million. Still a hefty number for a film that looks like it will make only $24 million its opening weekend.
As for Megamind, in its second weekend it has already taken in $7.9 million on Friday, which should amount to approximately $26-27 million for the weekend. This is still about $6 million off Laremy’s Tangled waiting in the wings.
Also in its second weekend is Todd Phillips’s R-rated comedy, Due Date, taking in $5.5 million on Friday for a likely $14 million weekend, a 57% drop from last weekend. This isn’t exactly stellar for a film budgeted at $65 million, but by the time the weekend is through it will have earned approximately $57 million domestically and with already $22 million in foreign receipts, this one should do just fine.
The weekend’s next newcomer is Universal’s Skyline from the brothers that directed Alien vs. Predator – Requiem and drenched it in absolute darkness to the point you couldn’t actually see what was going on. I’m not sure if Skyline enjoyed a similar blackout as it wasn’t screened for press here in Seattle, but reviews from those that did go see it haven’t been kind. Skyline took in $4.7 million on Friday, and I expect that number will drop significantly over the next two days for a total somewhere around $9-10 million for the weekend. Nikki Finke at Deadline disagrees and thinks it will total $14 million, but I’m just not seeing it.
Finally, at #5 is Paramount’s dramedy Morning Glory, which opened on Wednesday and in its first two days brought in a meager $2.6 million. The film, which split critics but I personally enjoyed, managed $3.1 million on Friday, which should continue over the next two days for an approximate $9 million three-day total. Not exactly knocking it out the box.
I have included Friday’s top ten directly below and will be back on Sunday with a complete wrap-up of the weekend.
- Unstoppable – $8.1 million
- Megamind – $7.9 million
- Due Date – $5.5 million
- Skyline – $4.7 million
- Morning Glory – $3.1 million
- For Colored Girls – $2 million
- Red – $1.6 million
- Paranormal Activity 2 – $1 million
- Saw 3D – $968,000
- Jackass 3D – $787,000
