‘Kung Fu Panda’ Opens With Impressive $17.75 Million Friday Estimate

Steve Mason at Fantasy Moguls has posted early Friday box-office estimates and Kung Fu Panda looks to have performed quite nicely on opening night to the tune of $17.75 million. Mason expects this to translate to $55 million for the weekend (damn near exactly what Laremy predicted), which would be the third best opening for DreamWorks Animation behind Shrek the Third and Shrek 2. The key here is that those are both sequels.

As Mason points out, Panda will actually place around #5 all-time in terms of best non-sequel opening weekends should the $55 million estimate hold-up. Above it would be four Pixar films with a fifth just below it in the form of Ratatouille. Considering Pixar films sell simply based on the fact that they are Pixar films and animated sequels are always expected to open big this is great news for DreamWorks and I couldn’t be happier since Kung Fu Panda is one of the best animated films I have seen in a long time.

And, despite horrible reviews (and somehow some positive ones), Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess with the Zohan opened Friday with $13.25 million and Mason expects that to grow to $36.25 million for the weekend. This number actually beats last year’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry by just over $2 million and falls short of the equally awful Click by just under $4 million.

The other two films I was most interested in were Sex and the City in its second weekend along with Universal’s The Strangers.

Sex and the City is estimated to have pulled in $7.8 million on Friday and is expected to managed $23.5 million for the weekend already giving the flick a box-office total over $100 million in just under a week of release. The Strangers hangs tough with $3 million on Friday and an anticipated $9.1 million for the weekend.

Now, to check for any entries into the $300 million club. Unfortunately we don’t have any entrants yet and we won’t by the end of the weekend as Iron Man earned another $2.2 milly on Friday and is expected to make $8 million for the weekend raising its cumulative total to $289.37 million. As for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull it will also still have some work to do as Indy scrounged up $6.5 million on Friday and is expected to take in a total of $23.75 million for the weekend raising his cume to $253.97 million. Work is left to do indeed.

Check below for Fantasy Moguls’ complete early Friday estimates and stay tuned Sunday when we bring you a complete recap of the weekend.

1. Kung Fu Panda (Dreamworks) – $17.75 million
2. You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (Sony) – $13.25 million
3. Sex and the City (Warner Bros.) — $7.8 million
4. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount) — $6.5 million
5. The Strangers (Rogue Releasing) — $3 million
6. Iron Man (Paramount) — $2.2 million
7. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Disney) — $1.76 million
8. What Happens in Vegas (20th Century Fox) — $1.26 million
9. Baby Mama (Universal) — $415,000
10. Made of Honor (Sony) — $400,000