What will probably surprise people most about these Friday box-office estimates provided by Deadline.com is not that Avatar is going to make it seven straight weekends in a row, but that newcomer Edge of Darkness is performing so poorly.
Avatar earned an estimated $7.5 million on Friday, which will most likely translate into another $26 million or so for the three-day, which means yet another low percentage drop for the film that recently became the #1 film at the worldwide box-office and by next weekend will be the #1 film at the all-time domestic box-office. It’s worldwide cume will certainly be over $2 billion making it the first film to do that, and Titanic‘s $600+ million record will be falling shortly. As if it needs to be said again, it’s an impressive feat.
As for Mel Gibson’s first lead performance since 2002’s Signs, Edge of Darkness was predicted by our Box-Office Oracle Laremy Legel to take home $21.5 million this weekend. While his Avatar prediction will be close, his Darkness prediction will probably be about $5-6 million off as the film managed a meager $5.6 million on Friday and will likely take home $16 million or so for the three-day.
By my count, it appears there were three commenter’s on Laremy’s Oracle article predicting Edge of Darkness to beat Avatar this week, but now that hasn’t proven true anyone willing to predict either From Paris with Love or Dear John have what it takes to dethrone the new king? Or will we have to wait until February 12 where three films set out to spoil Avatar‘s run?
Even worse than Darkness, but not necessarily surprising is the $4.4 million for Touchstone’s When In Rome, a film Pete Hammond was among the few that could actually swallow their integrity and call it anything remotely resembling good. It will likely end the weekend around $11 million. Congratulations to those of you that supported Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel’s trip to Italy where they made an awful movie and padded their bank accounts.
Looking at last week’s biggest opener, Legion fell a whopping 70% and took in $2 million on Friday and looks to make about $6 million for the weekend. Apparently word-of-mouth wasn’t too good on the top-heavy feature that played second fiddle to Avatar last weekend with a $17.5 million opening.
Another interesting tidbit is to see Warner Bros.’ Sherlock Holmes in the #8 slot on Friday and the expectation it will earn about $3.5 million for the three day. Such a return makes me wonder why in the world Warner Home Video would already announce the DVD and Blu-ray for release on March 30. Doesn’t that simply deter people from going to the theater knowing they can wait and just rent it in two months?
The complete list of Friday estimates is listed directly below. You won’t find Extraordinary Measures, which managed a paltry $715,000 on Friday from 2,549 theaters — not a solid second weekend.
Laremy will be here on Sunday to report the final three-day estimates.
- Avatar – $7.5 million
- Edge of Darkness – $5.6 million
- When in Rome – $4.4 million
- The Book of Eli – $2.3 million
- The Tooth Fairy – $2.2 million
- Legion – $2.0 million
- The Lovely Bones – $1.3 million
- Sherlock Holmes – $1.1 million
- It’s Complicated – $950,000
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel – $815,000
