Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
December 5, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com

So how much to I have to eat to get as big as you?

[tm:3704_]The Blind Side[/tm]

After two weekends behind New Moon, The Blind Side's word of mouth finally puts it on top as it earned $6.8 million on Friday to the top earner at the box office. Yes, this is off 58% from last Friday, but this is always an abysmal weekend for holdovers as Black Friday is always inflated (in fact, everything else in the top ten that was a holdover fell at least 70% from last Friday. I'm looking for a weekend multiplier similar to what was earned over opening weekend, which would give The Blind Side a third weekend of $21 million.

Brothers

The top opener of the week is the war drama Brothers, with $4.5 million, good for third place on Friday. It's an A-list cast of young actors but the subject matter likely prevents this from going anywhere in the next few weeks. A $13 million opening on a generally lousy weekend is still pretty good, though.

[tm:4506_]Armored[/tm]

Action film Armored is pretty much the definition of a sacrificial lamb that usually hits theaters on this weekend, and it's in fourth with $2.4 million on Friday. This is going nowhere and it's going to get there pretty quickly. Give it $6.5 million for the weekend.

Everybody's Fine

Robert DeNiro's Everybody's Fine earned a disappointing $1.3 million on Friday. Much like Brothers, its another film with a very strong cast, but there was virtually no promotion for Everybody's Fine and that's why it's the worst wide release of the weekend. It should end up with $4 million for the weekend.

Notable Holdovers

[tm:4777_]The Twilight Saga: New Moon[/tm] is down 71% from Black Friday to $5.2 million and the second film in the Twilight franchise now stands at $245.1 million. Hard to believe that two weeks ago this made $72 million in a twenty-four hour period. A third weekend tally of $13.5 million is where it should end up and it may not make it to the holiday money train that would get it over $300 million.

It's the traditional post-Thanksgiving collapse for last weekend's openers as [tm:4499_]Old Dogs[/tm] plunges 70% from last Friday, and perhaps more predictably, [tm:4263_]Ninja Assassin[/tm] is off 71% from last Friday.