Not much of a surprise here as the only question was just how big would Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island go, and the answer for Friday was $14 million in 2,991 theaters. Considering the film’s R-rating I would suspect we are looking at a $35-40 million weekend, which, as it turns out, will be the largest debut for a Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio team-up, ahead of the duo’s $26.8 million opening weekend in 2006 for The Departed. Comparatively, The Aviator made only $858,021 in a limited opening weekend, followed by an $8.6 million weekend when it went wide in 2004 and Gangs of New York only opened with $9.4 million back in 2002.
Seeing how Shutter Island was the weekend’s only wide release, the rest of the field is rather uninteresting. Valentine’s Day fell 61% from last weekend and will take the #2 slot for the weekend with $5.6 million on Friday and what is likely to be a $17 million weekend. Percy Jackson managed a meager $4 million and will battle with Avatar for the #3 slot for the weekend. Avatar is likely to win that battle as it scored $3.9 million on Friday and will probably end the weekend around $14-16 million.
Universal’s The Wolfman is the weekend’s biggest loser, falling 68% from last weekend with only $2.9 million on Friday to take the fifth slot, which will struggle to make $9 million for the weekend, down from $31.7 million from its opening last week. All-in-all, last week’s openers performed horribly with Valentine’s Day‘s 61% drop, Percy Jackson‘s 58% drop and The Wolfman 68% collapse. Yikes!
I have included the complete Friday top ten below courtesy of Variety and I will be doing tomorrow’s Box-Office Wrap-Up as Laremy is in Vancouver for the Olympics. See you Sunday morning.
- Shutter Island – $14 million
- Valentine’s Day – $5.6 million
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians – $4 million
- Avatar – $3.9 million
- The Wolfman – $2.9 million
- Dear John – $2.35 million
- Tooth Fairy – $1.1 million
- Crazy Heart – $765,000
- From Paris With Love – $716,000
- Edge of Darkness – $614,000
