I can’t imagine anyone that covers movies on a regular basis not taking an interest in this weekend’s box-office numbers as there was an obvious interest in finding out how well Watchmen scored with audiences that saw it last weekend and throughout the week. Unfortunately for Warner Bros. it appears word-of-mouth wasn’t too good as Watchmen scored an estimated mere $5.2 million on Friday and Steve Mason of Big Hollywood now predicts it will only manage $15.75 million for the weekend, marking a 71% drop from last week’s $55.2 million domestic opening.
Things look a little better for the Dwayne Johnson family actioner Race To Witch Mountain which will likely mark Johnson’s fifth all time best opener with an estimated $6.5 million opening on its way to an projected $22.7 million weekend. It will be interesting to see if Witch Mountain has the legs Johnson’s last Disney feature, The Game Plan (also with director Andy Fickman), which went on to make over $90 million at the domestic box-office after a similar $22.9 million opening.
Rogue Pictures’ torture-porn entry, The Last House on the Left, mustered an estimated $5.3 million on Friday and is expected to battle it out with Watchmen for the second spot with Mason currently projecting it to come up just a bit short with a projected $14 million for the weekend. The film performed more or less as expected.
I would say the continuing big box-office story of the year remains Fox’s PG-13-rated revenge feature Taken, which is currently this year’s second highest grossing film carrying $120+ million into the weekend. Mason projects it will add another $6.1 million to its total this weekend putting it only $8 million behind 2009’s top earner to this point, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which also remains in the top ten and is expected to earn approximately $2.5 million this weekend upping its total to $137 million.
Taken is a film Fox did very little to market and I have even heard they thought about sending it direct-to-DVD. However, it has now been revealed screenwriter Mark Kamen is already writing a sequel. Hooray for the little guy eh?
Below are the early Friday estimates courtesy of Big Hollywood, Laremy will be here Sunday with a complete weekend recap.
- Race to Witch Mountain (Disney) – $6.5 million
- The Last House on the Left (Universal) – $5.3 million
- Watchmen (Warner Bros) – $5.2 million
- Taken (Fox) – $1.9 million
- Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) – $1.45 million
- Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $1.35 million
- Miss March (Fox Searchlight) – $750,000
- Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) – $700,000
- He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) – $650,000
- Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) – $600,000
