By Walid Habboub

December 29, 2001

Well, you can't get them all right. With Friday's numbers in, projections were close pretty much across the board.

Lord Of The Rings pulled in $12.1 million on Friday, a miniscule 15.3% decrease from its first Friday take. Rings looks to pull in $40 million over the weekend. If it does gross this number it would mean a 15.2% drop for this juggernaut. This would mean that Rings would have an approximate gross of $157 million by end of day Sunday, its 12th day of release.

The box office picture for Ali is much clearer now that the Friday numbers are in. Ali grossed $4.87 million in its first Friday which is a small 17.8% increase from its Thursday number. Ali is on pace to gross $16 million this weekend and this shows that yesterday's extrapolation of $17.6 million and expectation of $20 million were a little optimistic. Its box office total will be probably be in the $37 million range by end of weekend. The small Thursday to Friday increase is not very encouraging for Ali especially considering that the other adult-targeted top ten films increased from their Thursday number by no less than 28% each.

The big winner this weekend is A Beautiful Mind which had a one-day per screen average of $4,428 and seems headed for a weekend per screen average of $14,018; very strong numbers indeed. Word of mouth has been excellent on Mind and as it heads for a $7.5 million weekend, it seems like Universal's platform release strategy will payoff big. Universal would love to see another large hit to what has been an incredible year for them; Mind's box office success only strengthens its Oscar chances and Universal would consider an Oscar the perfect cherry on top of the sundae that has been 2001.

Coming in at a very strong second place for Friday was Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. In defiance of marginally positive reviews and backed by large hype, Neutron grossed $5.66 million on Friday, an increase of 51% from last Friday's take. While impressive, it is important to note that Neutron is a kids movie and its weekend multiplier will not be as large as the adult-targeted films. I only expect an increase of 15 to 20% over the weekend and a total weekend take of $16.5 million.

Kate & Leopold showed some grit as well and faired much better than Ali did when it grossed $3.26 million. Considering that Ali opened to four times as much business as Kate & Leopold on Christmas Day and that on Friday K&L grossed two thirds of what Ali did, the romantic comedy is doing much better than expected. With a 31% increase from Thursday to Friday, K&L looks like it will be headed for a $10.8 million weekend, just north of yesterday's $10 million expectation.

Other things to note are that Harry Potter increased its F-F number by 107% while Monsters Inc. increased its number by 112%. As well, both Ocean's 11 and The Majestic saw increases in their F-F numbers. While this is small comfort for The Majestic, it is excellent news for O11 as it brings its box office total to $116 million. It will be interesting to see if O11 beats Neutron for the number two spot for the weekend.

View other columns by Walid Habboub