Apologies for the delay in reporting on the Friday box-office numbers, but hopefully most domestic readers are enjoying a fun Fourth of July holiday weekend like myself and for the international readers I hope you too, are enjoying a good weekend. As for the numbers, it’s not as if I am reporting on anything out of the realm of expectation as Summit’s The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is off to a solid start with an estimated $28.6 million from 4,416 theaters giving the film over $80 million after only three days in theaters. It’s nice to see fans supporting a film, and I only wish the same could be said for other films from this summer movie season. It’s easy to look at the Twilight phenomenon as something only a small handful of viewers are interested in, but at least there’s something making money and putting several asses in the seats.
Paramount and M. Night Shyamalan took a drubbing from critics, myself included, but The Last Airbender was able to hold on strong after $16.35 million on its opening Thursday and another $16.6 million on Friday. The film has taken a heavy hit from critics and adult audiences, but I expect it to hold on very strong with younger viewers and families. The film is not great, but it skews very young, which is where I believe it will do very well. Will it be enough for a film said to have been made for upwards of $150 million to get the sequel they so obviously wanted? That’s a question the movie gods have yet to answer, but a $45-48 million three-day is a good place to start. The drop-off is the real question.
Elsewhere, Toy Story 3 takes #3 with an estimated $10.4 million and another small weekend drop off as it will shortly become the third film from 2010 to hit the $300 million mark along with Iron Man 2 and Alice in Wonderland.
Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups now sits at $65 million after opening last weekend and will likely add another $12m to that total after $6.9 on Friday bringing the total to nearly $80 million with still a little work to be done for another $100 million effort from the Sandler oeuvre. The Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz team-up managed $3.3 million on Friday and will likely end the weekend with $9-9.5 million.
The complete top ten is listed below and Laremy will be here Sunday with a complete wrap-up.
- The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – $28.6 million
- The Last Airbender – $16.6 million
- Toy Story 3 – $10.4 million
- Grown Ups – $6.9 million
- Knight and Day – $3.3 million
- The Karate Kid – $2.7 million
- The A-Team – $1 million
- Get Him to the Greek – $442,000
- Shrek Forever After – $273,000
- Cyrus – $240,000
