Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
April 24, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The Back Up Plan
[bp:106_]Jennifer Lopez[/bp]'s first romantic comedy (and really, first wide release) in five years is met with a collective shrug, though it is Friday's top earner with $4.2 million. With lousy reviews and a ridiculous premise, it's really not that much a surprise. It's on top for Friday but How to Train Your Dragon should pass it over the weekend. Give The Back Up Plan $12.2 million for the weekend.
The Losers
Comic adaptation The Losers is a self-fulfilling prophecy as it pretty much is a loser with $3.2 million on Friday. The weekend is not going to make things that much better. Call it a weekend of $8.6 million.
Oceans
Disney's nature documentary earned $2 million on Friday, after $2.5 million on Thursday, which happened to be Earth Day. Last year's Earth Day documentary, the conveniently titled Earth, earned $8.8 million opening weekend and $14.4 million in its first five days. Oceans will not do nearly as well, though $6.1 million over 1,200 theaters isn't completely terrible.
Notable Holdovers
After almost taking back the top spot last week, How to Train Your Dragon should do it this weekend, as it's earned $3.6 million, which is down 18% from last week. This has been a huge weekend earner and what may have been a disappointing opening weekend has turned into a lock for $200 million. As I mentioned in Monday Morning Quarterback, this is the latest in its run a former #1 movie has returned to #1 since Passion of the Christ, in its seventh weekend, rebounded back on top over Easter weekend in 2004. What the DreamWorks film has done is not unprecedented, but it is an extremely rare occurrence, especially in this era of 60%+ weekend declines.
How to Train Your Dragon, in its fifth weekend, will be this weekend's top earning film with $16 million.
[tm:4661_]Kick-Ass[/tm] kicked just enough ass to open at #1, but this week it's on the receiving end of the ass-kicking from audiences, down 63% from last Friday to $2.8 million. A second weekend of $7.9 million seems to be in the cards here.