I’d say the only surprise from Friday’s box-office estimates would be that the bottom five films all made less than $1 million. Even The A-Team coming in at #5 only managed $1.9 million, which makes for an extraordinarily top heavy Friday. To my recollection I don’t think I’ve ever reported on a Friday box-office with numbers this small at the bottom. Of course, it’s all relative to how much money’s being made at the top, but this is summer movie season… Aren’t we supposed to be talking about broken records and stand out hits? Let’s take a look at it.
As expected, Toy Story 3 will take the weekend. After an estimated $18 million on Friday you can look for this one to pull in something like $60-65 million for the weekend. Laremy predicted $71.7 for the hit animation, but something miraculous would have to happen for it to hit that mark.
Grown Ups is going to win the battle of the newcomers as it earned an estimated $14 million on Friday and has a shot at a $45 million opening, which is no surprise to anyone that’s taken a look at the success Adam Sandler movies have enjoyed. I discussed it in a recent article looking forward to June’s releases and wrote:
On June 25 Columbia will release the Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, Rob Schneider and David Spade ensemble comedy Grown Ups, which doesn’t seem to be exciting any of the people I’ve talked to, but considering it is a Sandler vehicle I have to assume we can chalk it up to a $100 million domestic return at minimum as pretty much everything Sandler does comedically turns to box-office gold. I mean, if You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Click and even The Longest Yard can earn over $100 million what reason would we have to believe this one won’t as well, no matter the quality?
You tell me, will Grown Ups hold on long enough to make it another $100 million earner for Sandler?
The Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz feature, Knight and Day, took in an estimated $6.3 million, which means it will be looking at anywhere from $20-23 million for the weekend. Releasing on Wednesday, Knight and Day earned $7.2 million in its first two days in theaters and will be working hard if it wants to crack the $30 million mark. However, it has managed to hold rather well after a lackluster $3.8 million opening. Then again, it’s not as if it had a very hard target to hit.
Finally, in the opening I referred to the dismal returns for movies #5-10 on Friday, and if you look at the bottom of that list you will find what will likely be considered the all-out bomb of the summer. After only one week, Jonah Hex, a reported $50-65 million budgeted film from Warner Bros., risks falling out of the top ten. I already discussed this result at length earlier this week, but if you have anything more to say about the film’s $500k return on Friday have at it in the comments.
I’ve included the rest of the Friday estimates directly below. Stay tuned for Laremy’s box-office wrap-up on Sunday.
- Toy Story 3 – $18 million
- Grown Ups – $14 million
- Knight and Day – $6.3 million
- The Karate Kid – $4.8 million
- The A-Team – $1.9 million
- Get Him To The Greek – $985,000
- Prince of Persia – $901,000
- Shrek Forever After – $850,000
- Killers – $659,000
- Jonah Hex – $500,000
