Friday Box Office Analysis
By Kim Hollis and David Mumpower
July 9, 2011
Two new comedies hit the marketplace, and the good news is that the one receiving positive reviews is ahead so far.
Horrible Bosses
Horrible Bosses, the movie that brings to life the dreams of thousands of workers in the world who fantasize about offing their jerky superiors, earned $9.9 million on Friday. What we're seeing this summer so far is that R-rated comedies are money in the bank. Since the budget for Horrible Bosses is reported at $35 million, the movie is looking to be close to earning back its budget after the weekend is done. Credit a killer concept and a fine cast of supporting characters as the bosses, including Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell and Kevin Spacey, not to mention Jason Bateman and Jason Sudeikis as a pair of embattled workers. Since reviews are mostly on the positive side, word-of-mouth may help Horrible Bosses to a more Bridesmaids-like trajectory over the long term than Bad Teacher. Give the film $27.8 million for the weekend and bragging rights over the King of Queens.
Zookeeper
As we've mentioned, the Kevin James film underperformed compared to Horrible Bosses, which gives us some level of faith in the universe. The movie that has James getting his dating advice from gorillas, elephants and other four-legged creatures earned $7.4 million on Saturday, which is still more than we might hope for but less than Sony wanted. Given all the CGI animals, Zookeeper had a budget of $80 million, and the studio will need to hope its kid-friendly nature will help it to have legs. The reviews sure won't. Zookeeper is looking at $23.8 million thanks to kids who will drag their parents to see it.
Notable Holdovers
The biggest of our holdovers is obviously Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which dropped 55% from last Friday's $33 million. That's not an unexpected number at all, given the massive opening. Friday's total of $14.9 million took Transformers 3 over the $225 million threshold, and it's well over $500 million worldwide at this point. It's Michael Bay's world. We're all just living in it. The weekend total should be right at $44 million.
The other two films from last weekend are barely a blip on the radar at this point. Larry Crowne earned $1.9 million yesterday, a decline of 55%. This doesn't bode well for its possible long-term prospects, and probably means a second weekend of $5.7 million. Monte Carlo also fell more than 50% with $1.5 million, and will have a three-day total of $4.3 million.
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