Deadline has delivered very early Friday box-office numbers showing the 3D animated DreamWorks feature How to Train Your Dragon taking in an estimated $12 million on Friday, a figure that should certainly balloon over the weekend with family audiences. Deadline’s Nikki Finke is currently projecting a range of $45 million, but I think word of mouth on this one will be really strong and wouldn’t be surprised to see a much higher result.
After three straight weeks at #1, Disney’s Alice in Wonderland falls to second place with $4.9 million on Friday and I would anticipate about $19-20 million for the weekend. However, that should prove to be enough to beat MGM’s Hot Tub Time Machine which opened with $4.7 million on Friday, but it will be tough for the R-rated comedy to compete with family fare over the weekend. I just have to wonder what MGM is going to think of that number as our very own Box-Office Oracle predicted a whopping $24.78 million for the film of which Laremy and I both enjoyed and others ranked it around $20 million for the weekend, but it looks like it will be lucky to hit $15 million.
Last week’s releases of The Bounty Hunter and Diary of a Wimpy Kid will take #4 and #5 respectively and it looks like word-of-mouth on Wimpy Kid must not have been too strong or the audience wasn’t too big as it went from besting Bounty Hunter last week in its opening frame to dropping below the film the following weekend. Neither scored very high with critics, but when kid films fall this far they must not be too impressive.
The rest of the list is directly below, and Laremy will be here Sunday morning with the complete wrap up.
- How To Train Your Dragon – $12 million
- Alice In Wonderland – $4.9 million
- Hot Tub Time Machine – $4.7 million
- The Bounty Hunter – $4 million
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid – $2.8 million
- She’s Out Of Your League – $1.1 million
- Green Zone – $990,000
- Shutter Island – $955,000
- Repo Men – $930,000
- Remember Me – $690,000
