Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
September 6, 2008
Bangkok Dangerous
The only new release of the weekend leads a really sorry box office pack on Friday. Nicolas Cage's Bangkok Dangerous earned $2.7 million. The only other film that really means anything out there right now is Tropic Thunder, which earned $2.1 million on Friday. What we have here is a guarantee that this weekend's box office champ will earn less than $10 million, the first time this has occurred since this exact weekend two years ago, when The Covenant won the weekend with $8.8 million.
The more interesting thing this weekend is whether Tropic Thunder can make up that $600,000 difference over the rest of the weekend, keeping it on top for the fourth week in a row. Based on past weekend performances, I have Tropic Thunder coming in with $7 million. Bangkok Dangerous would need to throw under a 2.6 multiplier for the weekend in order for it to not come out ahead. While this is entirely possible, looking at some Nicholas Cage flops that were released in September and October over the last few years, bombs such as The Wicker Man, Lord of War and The Weather Man all managed something in the vicinity of 3.0 as far as weekend multipliers. As difficult as this is to believe, Bangkok Dangerous will top the weekend with $7.8 million.
Notable Holdovers
It's hard to call anything notable, but Traitor does fare the best of last week's pathetic lot of Labor Day weekend openers, falling just 40%.
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