Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
August 8, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra opens to an explosive $22.3 million on Friday. Unscreened for critics, this was going to be pretty bulletproof anyway, at least on opening night. Word-of-mouth could very well kill it before the weekend is out and that should reflect in a lousy weekend multiplier. Even something as terrible as a 2.4 for the weekend would mean a three day total of $53.5 million.
Julie & Julia
The first movie based on a blog that is two, two, two biopics in one earned a pretty solid $6.5 million on Friday. With the collapse of [tm:4608_]Funny People[/tm] (more on that in a moment), the [bp:3463_]Meryl Streep[/bp]/[bp:9186_]Amy Adams[/bp] film is likely the most popular date movie option for those who would find G.I. Joe too loud. Being the movie of choice for adults this weekend should translate into an above average weekend multiplier, so give Julie & Julia a weekend of $19.8 million.
[tm:4732_]A Perfect Getaway[/tm]
Slipping into seventh on Friday is A Perfect Getaway, the week's requisite horror entry, earning $2 million. Due to not starring a bunch of disposable 20-somethings, this of course will be largely ignored by the target audience. Give it $5.4 million for the weekend.
Notable Holdovers
As one astute observer predicted last week, Funny People falls off a cliff on its second Friday, down 70% from a week ago to $2.6 million. A Sandler-inflated first day followed by the movie called Funny People not seeming exceptionally...funny has given Judd Apatow his first directorial flop. The weekend will improve slightly but this has become worst case scenario. A second weekend of $8 million is in the works for Funny People.