The Friday box-office results are in and to little surprise it will be Columbia’s comedy The Other Guys taking the weekend box-office crown after an estimated $13.2 million on Friday, which should translate to approximately $36 million for the weekend. This, of course, means Inception finally gets knocked off the pedestal after three weekends at the top, but will it take second over Touchstone’s Step Up 3D?
Step Up 3D didn’t get off to a very good start with only $6.6 million on Friday. This signals a step backwards rather than a step up for the franchise, which had, over the course of its first two films made $20.7 opening weekend with the first and and $18.9 million with the second. Of course, the trend was visible so perhaps we should have expected something in the $16 million range for the third film.
If you ask me, this is a film that the 3D ticket prices actually hurts, seeing how its target audience isn’t interested in visual gimmickery and just wants to see the dancing. Hard to sell tweens and teens on an $18.50 ticket price when that’s the case.
Currently in third, but likely to leap frog Step Up 3D for the three day, is Christopher Nolan’s Inception, which made $5.5 million on Friday and will likely turn that into $17-18 million for the weekend for yet another strong hold. With this additional $5.5 million, Inception has passed $214 million domestically, which is not only a big win for Warner Bros., but for audiences as well. This means studios shouldn’t instantly shy away from spending money on a smarter summer blockbuster, but it does also mean having the guy who directed The Dark Knight as the one in the director’s chair doesn’t hurt either.
Dinner for Schmucks dropped like the turd it is and managed $3.4 million on Friday and will likely end somewhere in the $9 million range and Columbia’s Salt is looking at a $9 million weekend as well with $3.2 million on Friday. This means Salt will likely cross the $100 million mark next weekend, but if this one stands a chance at getting the sequel it was obviously hoping for it will have to do some serious overseas dollars to make up for that $110 million production budget, let alone however much Sony spent marketing the thing.
In other news Charlie St. Cloud suffered a 69% drop from last week with only $1.7 million and Toy Story 3 added another $855k to its massive domestic tally of $393 million. Will it be able to hit that $400 million mark? Currently it sits in the #11 spot on the all-time domestic list behind Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which ended with just over $402 million.
The complete Friday box-office is listed directly below, Laremy will be here Sunday morning with a complete weekend wrap-up.
- The Other Guys – $13.2 million
- Step Up 3D – $6.6 million
- Inception – $5.6 million
- Dinner for Schmucks – $3.4 million
- Salt – $3.3 million
- Despicable Me – $2.9 million
- Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore – $2.1 million
- Charlie St. Cloud – $1.7 million
- Toy Story 3 – $850,000
- The Kids Are All Right – $716,000
