Friday Box Office Analysis
By Kim Hollis
August 14, 2004
Now that the aliens have fought the predators and Jason and Freddy have bashed each other around, the only logical progression in the theme is for an all-princess battle royale between Anne Hathaway, Julia Stiles, Hilary Duff and Amanda Bynes. My money would be on Hilary since she fights dirty.
Alien vs. Predator
Alien vs. Predator was able to ride the fanboy wave to a whopping $17.2 million on Friday. Like Freddy vs. Jason before it, AvP will see its overall weekend number affected by a substantial Friday rush. Using Freddy vs. Jason's 2.63 Friday-to-Sunday multiplier for comparison (and taking out just a bit for downward trending of frontloaded films in 2004), AvP should wind up with a first weekend total around $43 million before sharply falling off in weeks to come.
The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement
Disney finally has real reason to smile as The Princess Diaries 2 followed up a strong showing on Wednesday and Thursday with a Friday take of $8.2 million. Going into the three-day weekend, the Anne Hathaway film had already accumulated $14.2 million. The film will suffer somewhat from the early ticket buyers, but should still have a solid weekend and decent long-term prospects. It will fall a bit from the 2.75 Friday-to-Sunday multiplier of the original to a more sequel-esque 2.5 for a three-day total of $20.5 million.
Yu-Gi-Oh!
This cartoon is the worst thing I have ever seen, so I guess I can mark August 13, 2004 as the official date that I found myself completely out of touch with the youth of today. The film debuted on Friday to a surprisingly solid $4.5 million on only 2,411 screens. If it comes anywhere near following the trending of films such as Pokemon: The First Movie (3.44 multiplier) and Digimon: The Movie (3.42 multiplier), Yu-Gi-Oh should have a Friday-to-Sunday multiplier well in excess of 3.0. Look for an overall weekend of $13.5 million from the film, which should be plenty enough to make the WB kids division overjoyed.
Notable Holdovers
Collateral tumbled an impressive-for-this-summer 43% from its first Friday, and looks to be headed for a second weekend total of $14.8 million. Little Black Book, another of this year's abhorrent romantic comedies, fell 54% and should be looking at a total second weekend drop of around 50%. The Village continues to fall precipitously, losing 59% of its audience from last Friday. And The Bourne Supremacy continues to stay relatively strong with a 42% drop.
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Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
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Projected
Rank |
Film |
Estimated Gross |
|
1
|
Alien vs. Predator
|
$43.0
|
|
2
|
The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement
|
$20.5
|
|
3
|
Collateral
|
$14.8
|
|
4
|
Yu-Gi-Oh
|
$13.5
|
|
5
|
The Bourne Supremacy
|
$8.6
|
|
6
|
The Village
|
$6.6
|
|
7
|
The Manchurian Candidate
|
$6.3
|
|
8
|
I, Robot
|
$3.9
|
|
9
|
Little Black Book
|
$3.5
|
|
10
|
Spider-Man
|
$3.3
|
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