Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
January 27, 2007
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Epic Movie
The spoof entry comes in with $6.66 million on Friday. Interpret that as you will. Anyway, while it was one of the most reviled movies of 2006, Date Movie did come in with $19 million in its first three days before collapsing quickly. The 2.79 multiplier that Date Movie had seems like a decent fit here for Epic Movie, which would give it an okay $18.5 million, enough to win the weekend pretty easily.
Smokin' Aces
The heavily-advertised, star-studded Smokin' Aces does better than I expected with a solid second place finish at a hair under $5 million on Friday. Perhaps the closest comparison to the ensemble gangster action/comedy is something like Snatch, now only six years old. That had a 3.0 multiplier in its first weekend of wide release. I expect something a little bit worse here, likely around the same multiplier as Epic Movie would have. A 2.8 would give it a fairly decent $14 million for the weekend.
Catch and Release
The virtually-unadvertised romantic comedy on only 1,600 screens could only manage $2.7 million, a far cry from Jennifer Garner's first romantic comedy release, 13 Going on 30, which opened to $21 million in April of 2004 (on over twice as many screens, too). Who'd have thunk that hubby's film would actually do better this weekend? Look for a weekend total of around $7.8 million
Notable Holdovers
Two-week champ Stomp the Yard is stomped by three newcomers down to fifth place. Look for a third weekend take of around $7 million.
With a slew of Oscar nominations, but a tainted eight since three are for Best Song and there's no Best Picture nomination, Dreamgirls doesn't see a bounce at all but instead declines 24% from last Friday. Things are better for The Queen, which sees an 11% increase in the wake of its Best Picture nomination.