Friday Box Office Analysis
by Tim Briody
February 23, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Snitch
Snitch, the first of a bunch of films this year starring current WWE Champion The Rock, starts off with $4.1 million. That's good enough to tie for first place on Friday. Rocky's non-franchise, non-family films tend to never do anything special at the box office, as it's Fast and Furious 6 and G.I. Joe: Retaliation that are going to be his big earners in 2013. Snitch is not going to win the weekend, but it will have an okay weekend of $11.8 million.
Dark Skies
Supernatural thriller Dark Skies earned $3.1 million. Not great, but not awful. The studios skipped out on releasing any heavy hitters on Oscar weekend, so the depressed box office this weekend (especially on Sunday) becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Look for about $9 million for the weekend where it will vanish quickly.
Identity Thief
Tied with Snitch for the top film on Friday is the three-week old Identity Thief, earning $4.1 million. On a weekend like this, broad comedy plays the strongest, so a rebound to the top after some Valentine's Day releases shoved it out of the way isn't too surprising. It's down 45% from last Friday, but that's certainly good enough to win the weekend with a still pretty good $13.8 million, as it approaches the $100 million mark.
Notable Holdovers
A Good Day to Die Hard plunges hard, down 61% from last Friday with $2.8 million. Suddenly, there's a good chance that this is the first film in the Die Hard franchise since the original (of course $83 million in 1988 is well over $100 million today) to not break $100 million. As we've stated before, overseas grosses are key to franchises nowadays so it's fine but a repeat of Live Free or Die Hard's performance is completely out of the question. Die Hard 5 will have a second weekend of $8.4 million.