Warner Bros.’s exorcism feature The Rite (my review here) lead the Friday box-office estimates with $5.3 million and what looks to be a $15 million weekend. However, should sales not hold steady, the film, which was budgeted at a reported $37 million, could have trouble holding off last weekend’s #1 No Strings Attached.
The Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman comedy scored $4.4 million on Friday and will likely finish around $14 million. A slight bump upwards and a small decline for The Rite would give the Ivan Reitman directed feature a second week at the top as well as a decent 30% drop, give or take.
The week’s other new wide release, the Jason Statham and Ben Foster actioner The Mechanic (my review here), pulled in an estimated $3.6 million from 2,703 theaters, which means we’re looking at something like a $12 million opening. Not too bad for a film CBS reportedly paid $5 million to distribute.
The rest of the story has to do with films getting the “Oscar bump”. Earlier this week I received an email from Fandango telling me The King’s Speech, which led all nominees with 12, saw a 76% increase in ticket sales on Fandango since the Oscar nominations were announced on Tuesday. On Friday the film came in fifth with $2.8 million and an expected $9 million weekend if not more, which will have it besting last week’s result of $7.8 million.
Elsewhere, True Grit earned an estimated $1.9 million and Natalie Portman saw her second film in the top ten, Black Swan, pull in an estimated $1.4 million followed by The Fighter with $976,000. Speaking of Black Swan, did you watch this effects reel I posted yet?
Outside the top ten, Fox Searchlight finally released 127 Hours in more theaters, bumping it from 69 theaters last week to 916 theaters this weekend. The Danny Boyle-directed feature came in twelfth on Friday with an estimated $600,000 and a likely $1.8 million weekend, which will bring its overall cume to roughly $13.1 million.
Additionally, Roadside’s Biutiful (my review here) was finally released to the masses outside of its limited Oscar run, and the film which earned Javier Bardem a much-deserved Best Actor nomination, pulled in $115,000 on Friday which should translate to roughly $400,000 for the weekend and a $7,000 per theater average from 57 locations.
I’ve included the estimated Friday top ten directly below and will be back here on Sunday morning with a complete recap.
Remember, today we’ll get word on who won the Directors Guild of America top honors and tomorrow I’ll be live-blogging the Screen Actors Guild Awards starting around 3:30 PM PST. If you haven’t yet voted in my SAG Award poll to predict the winners you can do so right here.
- The Rite – $5.3 million
- No Strings Attached – $4.4 million
- The Mechanic – $3.6 million
- The Green Hornet – $2.9 million
- The King’s Speech – $2.8 million
- True Grit – $1.9 million
- The Dilemma – $1.7 million
- Black Swan – $1.4 million
- The Fighter – $976,000
- Yogi Bear – $587,000
