In terms of predicting the #1 film, it’s been pretty easy for the last couple of months as films like The Amazing Spider-Man, Ice Age: Continental Drift, The Dark Knight Rises and now The Bourne Legacy have been the easy choices.
On Friday The Bourne Legacy got off to a decent start, pulling in $14 million, but that’s not going to be enough to generate an opening weekend above $45 million ($7m shy of The Bourne Supremacy and $24m shy of The Bourne Ultimatum) and most likely a couple million shy of that number. The film has received a “B” CinemaScore from first day audience members, which is to say when people ask their friends if they should see it they’re going to get an, “Eh, it’s pretty good.” One friend instant messaged me last night saying, “How was that supposed to work as an ending exactly? It’s not even a successful cliffhanger. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be hanging onto… Too bad, I really dug it till then.” I’d say it’s not a good thing to end on a sour note, but that’s just me.
In second is a bit of a surprise with the Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis political comedy The Campaign slightly overperforming. With Mitt Romney announcing his running partner this morning perhaps that will help the film even further over the weekend as it pulled in $10.2 million on Friday and may be able to bump up against $30 million by Sunday if it’s lucky. Of course, that “B-” CinemaScore isn’t going to help it much.
The Dark Knight Rises falls from #1 to #3 where it will certainly end the weekend, probably with somewhere around $17-18 million continuing its solid, sub-50% drops from week to week and a cumulative domestic total somewhere around $390 million, creeping up on that #2 spot for the year currently held by The Hunger Games at $406.9 million.
In fourth is the week’s other new wide release, though the Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell starrer Hope Springs opened on Wednesday, hoping to get a jump start on the weekend and wouldn’t you know it, it’s outperforming the sinking Total Recall even after $2.2 million on Wednesday and $2.1 million on Thursday with a $4.7 million Friday. You have to go all the way down to #6 to find last week’s newcomer Total Recall, which opened to a weak $25.5 million last weekend and will struggle to hit $8 million this weekend and stay above a 70% drop. Ouch!
I’ve included Friday’s estimated top ten directly below and will be back on Sunday with a complete weekend wrap-up.
- The Bourne Legacy – $14 million
- The Campaign – $10.2 million
- The Dark Knight Rises – $5.6 million
- Hope Springs – $4.7 million
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days – $2.8 million
- Total Recall – $2.6 million
- Ice Age: Continental Drift – $2 million
- Ted – $983,000
- Step Up Revolution – $930,000
- The Watch – $660,000
