'Tropic Thunder' Eyeing Second #1, but 'House Bunny' Lurks in the Bushes

Early Friday box-office estimates are in and while The House Bunny manages to take the Friday box-office #1 slot, Steve Mason at Fantasy Moguls believes Tropic Thunder will slide back to #1 by the end of the weekend setting up a box-office battle at the top as Universal’s Death Race seems to have secured the #3 spot. Our very own box-office Oracle, Laremy Legel, appears to have given Death Race too much credit while giving Tropic Thunder not enough, but his House Bunny number may turn out pretty close.

First, The House Bunny is the film the majority of prognosticators picked to finish first and it has started out that way with a $5.6 million Friday, besting Tropic Thunder‘s $4.9 million and Death Race pulled up third with $4.3 million. However, the opinion appears to be that R-rated auds will turn out for Tropic Thunder over the weekend propelling it to #1 as Mason is guessing a $15.8 million finish with House Bunny at #2 with $14.4 million. This is a tough call considering I don’t see any reason why folks would be more willing to attend an R-rated flick over the weekend and assuming PG-13 audiences have tapped out after one day, especially to the tune of a $1.4 million difference. I am no box-office pro, but I don’t think this battle is over just yet.

Death Race is assumed to slowly fade and that makes sense seeing how the audience for a violent car race film can’t be that big and reviews aren’t exactly helping it along the way. Mason projects a $11.9 million, third place finish for the Statham starrer.

Pushing all of that to the side though may be the colossal failure of Fox’s The Rocker starring Rainn Wilson. I am sure the argument will be that The Rocker opened on Wednesday therefore its tally is likely to be lower, but considering a meager $1.0 million opening word-of-mouth must have been so quiet you could hear a pin drop because the rock comedy didn’t even make the Friday top ten coming in with only $1 million and it is expected to only cume $2.9 million for the weekend. Not impressive considering the even lesser promoted film The Longshots, which wasn’t even screened here in Seattle, is looking to pull a weekend total of $4.25 million after an estimated $1.4 million on Friday. Not stellar numbers, but considering it is an Ice Cube family comedy directed by one-time Limp Bizkit front man Fred Durst I call that a win.

For those wondering about The Dark Knight, it is holding strong at #4 with $3.02 million on Friday and an anticipated $10.12 million for the weekend raising its overall total to $488+ million. That $500 million mark is just around the corner folks.

Rounding out the weekend top five is the Warner Bros. animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars a film many online bloggers have deemed the assassin of the Star Wars franchise. Estimated to have made $1.75 million on Friday the film is expected to turnover $5 million for the weekend raising its tally to $24.3 million, far fewer dollars I am assuming a Star Wars film of any kind would have made had the prequel films been better received.

Below are the complete Friday estimates courtesy of Fantasy Moguls and I will be filling in for Laremy on Sunday with the complete wrap-up so be sure to come on back and get the final totals with all my witty commentary. Natch.