Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
August 20, 2005
Is it weird that August is producing more hits than July did?
The 40 Year-Old Virgin
The Steve Carell comedy directed by Judd Apatow earned an impressive $7.3 million Friday. As Wedding Crashers' strong run starts to slow down, here comes another comedy to take its place. The opening night figure might be inflated just a tad so we'll go with a conservative internal multiplier of 2.7 for a $19.7 million weekend.
Red Eye
Wes Craven's thriller drew a decent $6.2 million Friday. With its main stars having breakouts of their own in other films this summer, that certainly didn't hurt. Figure around a 2.8 internal mutliplier and a $17.4 million weekend.
Valiant
The CGI-animated Valiant took in a meager $1.8 million Friday, a disappointing figure for even a film as buried as this one. Even a somewhat above average multiplier will still place it at around $6 million for the weekend.
Notable Holdovers
Four Brothers falls 49.4% from a week ago which is a bit higher than expected given its target audience. Look for a weekend decline of around 45% or so to $11.6 million.
Kate Hudson's Skeleton Key fell a much more typical 58.9% from last Friday. Figure a 55% decline or so and a $7.2 million second weekend.
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo and The Great Raid have fallen off the face of the earth, much like this weekend's other new release, Supercross.
|
Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
|
Projected
Rank |
Film |
Estimated Gross |
|
1
|
The 40 Year-Old Virgin
|
19.7
|
|
2
|
Red Eye
|
17.0
|
|
3
|
Four Brothers
|
11.6
|
|
4
|
Wedding Crashers
|
8.1
|
|
5
|
Skeleton Key
|
7.2
|
|
6
|
March of the Penguins
|
7.0
|
|
7
|
Valiant
|
6.0
|
|
8
|
The Dukes of Hazzard
|
5.4
|
|
9
|
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
|
4.5
|
|
10
|
Sky High
|
4.1
|
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