Friday Numbers Analysis

By Tim Briody

July 26, 2003

It just leaps off the screen at you, doesn't it?

Game Over for Lara Croft

Oh, come on. Don't act so surprised. We all saw what happened to Charlie's Angels the second time around. There was no way the same thing wasn't going to happen with the second Tomb Raider movie.

Spy Kids 3D: Game Over

The third entry in Robert Rodriguez's kiddie trilogy earned a remarkable $11.6 million Friday, more than doubling the $5.2 million first day of last year's Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, and very nearly doing the same to the $6.8 million made by the first film.

While it's tempting to immediately to slap the 3.27 multiplier of Spy Kids 2 onto 3D, the signifigantly higher Friday number for this one clouds things up a bit. Additionally, multipliers for kids films are tempered in July, as opposed to the March release of the first film or even the August release of the second one. In any event, the weekend multiplier should be somewhere in the vicinity of 2.9 which gives Game Over an outstanding $33.6 million weekend.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

While Lara Croft: Tomb Raider had a first Friday of $18 million in 2001, the opening day estimated total of $8.6 million for The Cradle of Life has the sequel basically meeting the same fate that befell Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and proves that no one really wanted a sequel to this film anyway. It's still good for second place this weekend, but t will come nowhere near the $47 million of the first film. However, the 2.64 multiplier that film had is a good comparison for this one, so the $22.7 million weekend for The Cradle of Life brings this video game franchise to a screeching halt.

Seabiscuit

It's not going to win, place or show this weekend, but there's absolutely nothing wrong witht the estimated $6.2 million Friday taken in by Seabiscuit. Last year's inspirational based-on-a-true-story sports movie, The Rookie, had a 2.62 multiplier, though that was more targeted at families rather than mainly adults. We'll bump that one up to 2.9 which gives Seabiscuit a very strong $17.9 million for the weekend, where it will now rely on word-of-mouth to keep going.

Notable Holdovers

Bad boys, bad boys, what are they gonna do? Plunge 60% from last Friday, that's what. Look for a 55-60% weekend decline for the sequel.

The news wasn't much better for the other holdovers. How To Deal falls 68% and Johnny English drops 56.3% from the previous Friday.

Extrapolated Estimates for the Top Ten
Projected
Rank
Film
Estimated Gross (M$)
1
Spy Kids 3D: Game Over
33.6
2
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
22.7
3
Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl
21.3
4
Bad Boys II
18.6
5
Seabiscuit
17.9
6
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
4.6
7
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
4.4
8
Johnny English
4.3
9
Finding Nemo
3.7
10
How To Deal
1.9

     


 
 

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