Friday Numbers Analysis
By Tim Briody
August 7, 2004
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The Tom Cruise/Jamie Foxx thriller earned an estimated $8.1 million Friday, quite similar to the $8.4 million taken in by December's The Last Samurai. With its dark themes and rave reviews, that bodes pretty well for the rest of the weekend. We'll give it a 3.1 internal multiplier, which gives Collateral a decent $25.3 million for the weekend.
Little Black Book
Brittany Murphy's romantic comedy Little Black Book was only able to take in an estimated $2.7 million Friday, a step backwards from last year's Uptown Girls. The only good news in store is that as the only light date move option out there, it should be able to have a respectable internal multiplier. We'll go with a 2.9, which give Little Black Book a weekend total of $7.8 million.
Notable Holdovers
The Friday-to-Friday drops just get more insane as the summer goes on. M. Night Shyamalan's The Village falls an excessive-by-even-this-summer's-standards 72.2% from last Friday. The rule is quickly becoming that event films just have to stop the bleeding by weekend three to ensure a decent run. The Village should be able to get its overall weekend decline down to around 60-65% or so, but that's not saying much.
The Manchurian Candidate bucks the trend of the summer by dropping only 48% from last Friday. A weekend decline of around 40% sounds about right as the Denzel Washington picture looks to leg it out over the rest of the summer.
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is now destined to be a cult hit on DVD with a 46.3% decline from last Friday. With a little luck, our heroes might be able to end up with a weekend decline of under 40% for the weekend.