Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
July 7, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Spider-Man as imagined by Nicholas Sparks.

[tm:4672_]The Amazing Spider-Man[/tm]

Summer tentpole reboot The Amazing Spider-Man scored $20.7 million on Friday, giving it a running total of $95.6 million since Tuesday. As David Mumpower detailed yesterday, the Friday take is right on where he predicted it would rebound from Thursday, when it earned $15.8 million. Friday does not even top the Tuesday opening take when you take out the midnight showings.

That's not to call the first four days of box office bad, just underwhelming since Marvel properties are at an all-time high thanks to the ridiculous success of The Avengers. Imagine what these numbers might be had The Avengers not taken off? We'd be looking at a week-long disaster. While we've learned that reboots are somewhat willing to trade off box office now in exchange for potential future returns (see: Begins, Batman), The Amazing Spider-Man's apparent un-necessity is what's becoming the limiting factor here. Audiences who let Spider-Man 3 open to $151 million in three days (a figure this will not come close to in six days) are looking at The Amazing Spider-Man and shrugging their shoulders at it. Even in the era of huge numbers, it's hard to scoff at what looks to be a six-day total of $130-135 million, but you still come away with the feeling that there was money left on the table here. Not to mention that its long term prospects aren't looking so hot.

Looking again at Transformers, the last film to have a similar release pattern with July 4th falling on a Wednesday, it saw a moderate uptick on Saturday followed by a Sunday that was in line with Friday. For The Amazing Spider-Man, I expect a similar Saturday followed by a larger drop on Sunday due to the nature of it being a sequel of sorts. A 2.8 multiplier (as opposed to Transformers' 3.1) would give it a weekend of $57.9 million, and a total of $132.9 million in six days.

[tm:5191_]Savages[/tm]

Actually opening on Friday, [bp:5592_]Oliver Stone[/bp]'s Savages opened to $5.6 million, fifth place behind Spider-Man and holdovers [tm:5129_]Ted[/tm], [tm:4518_]Brave[/tm] and [tm:5305_]Magic Mike[/tm]. It was never going to be a runaway hit, but this is fine and reviews indicate a solid return to form for Stone. A weekend of $16.8 million is a very good start for the drug-laden action-thriller.

Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D

Inexplicably opening on Thursday, Katy Perry's biopic/concert film earned $2.7 million on Friday after a $3.1 million Thursday. I will never understand this, ever. The box office here is a far cry from Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, which started in February 2011 with $12.3 million but only managed a $29.5 million weekend. While the Perry movie would also expect to be hideously frontloaded over the weekend, that is offset by the fact that most of the frontloading happened on Thursday. It should come in with $7.2 million over the weekend and $10.3 million in four days.

Notable Holdovers

Last weekend's biggest winner, Seth MacFarlane's Ted falls 48% from last Friday to $10.5 million. It put up pretty decent numbers over the holiday week and it's crossing the $100 million mark by the time you read this. Ted was slightly, though predictably frontloaded last weekend but it's clearly this year's Hangover/Bridesmaids. The R-rated comedy is back, again. A second weekend of $31.4 million should be in store, as it starts to head towards the $200 million mark.

Magic Mike was pretty much a one-day wonder as it dropped 68.5% from last Friday to $6.1 million. It had a sub-Sex and the City weekend multiplier of 2.01 last weekend, which is one of the most impressive feats of box office in a year full of them. With last Friday clearly being Ladies' Night Out, it will behave much more normally this weekend and bring down that decline a good deal. Look for a second weekend of $17.8 million.