Friday Box Office Analysis
by Tim Briody
April 20, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
[bp:145_]Tom Cruise[/bp]'s latest movie, Oblivion, which is sadly not an Elder Scrolls movie, starts off with $13 million on Friday. This is pretty much in line with expectations and shows it was not significantly hurt by the Boston manhunt news. While the story captured a large amount of attention Friday night (and really, is the purest example of a real-life movie unfolding before our eyes), escapism will always win out over reality. By the time you read this, Oblivion will have made more than Jack Reacher's opening weekend in December, though the two Cruise films are not the best comparisons. We can go back 11 years to Minority Report, which in a different box office era began with a $11.3 million Friday and a $35.6 million weekend. That would be an exceptional 3.15 multiplier, but like I said, different box office era. Still, Oblivion should get off to a good start domestically (it earned $61 million just last weekend overseas) with a weekend of $36.4 million.
The Place Beyond the Pines
After landing in the top ten last weekend on 514 screens, The Place Beyond the Pines adds over 1,000 more and has a Friday total of $1.4 million, a 15% increase from last Friday. The crime drama (which only cost $15 million to make) is good for a weekend of $4.5 million.
Notable Holdovers
The Jackie Robinson story 42 earned $5.2 million on Friday, a somewhat fitting 42.6% decline from its opening Friday. As expected, 42 played well with older audiences and had a strong Saturday and Sunday to give it the largest opening by a baseball movie in box office history. That should repeat itself this weekend and it will easily take second place with $16.8 million.
Scary Movie V drops a predictable 62% to about $2 million on Friday. Let's just give it $5 million for the weekend and call it good.