I expect Bruno to open up much higher than Borat did. Borat opened pretty decently, but in it ended up making more in its second week due to all the controversies and such, pulling people in to see what what all the fuss was about. This time people should be fully aware of what to expect, that is within reason. I'm thinking Bruno is going to pull in numbers closer to Borat's second week. I could be wrong, but to me it seems more logical

Thats horrible about the Proposal 2, funny, bu horrible. Public Enemies was ,by far, the best movie out this weekend!

Nah just wait for the finals to come in, I have a feeling that Transformers was severely overestimated…

Whoa, Ice Age really underperformed. Though it's not flop by any means, it's still likely to finish below both predecessors. And $90M budget is kinda surprising, I mean, they all cost at least 150 these days.

As for next weekend… Well, Borat only went wide in its second weekend, and it was at $28M (2,566 theaters, $11k avg.). Bruno is opening in 2700+ theaters, and is likely going to do better per screen, so it will be no surprise to me if it reaches $35M. It will be, though, if it opens below 30 or above 40 million.

Good News: The Dark Knight's highest grossing film of the decade spot is safe for now. (With ROFT being $3 to $42 million behind TDK) There is still hope for humanity.
Bad News: ROFT is still the #1 movie of the year, I never thought the day would come where I'd be rooting for Harry Potter to kick giant robot ass.
As for Bruno it will make more then Borat in its 2nd week (My bet is $37 million this weekend.) I don't think it will make as much overall because of the lack of controversy and not as strong word of mouth. (Plus that damn kid wizard coming 5 days after.)
Though if Bruno's going to have problems then Beth Cooper's f*cked.

Bruno should easily take next weekend; Ice Age 2 dropped around 50% in its second weekend. Ice Age 3 will probably fall a bit less, because both releases coming out next Friday are aimed at teenagers and adults, but still, I'd be surprised if it dropped under 40%. Public Enemies should fall off rather quickly, as word of mouth has been mixed… The Hangover should also take a heavy drop, as it will be faced by strong competition from Bruno. I Love You, Beth Cooper will undoubtedly flop- just because it looks so awful. Early predictions:

1. Bruno- $34 million
2. Ice Age 3- $25 million
3. Transformers 2- $23 million
4. Public Enemies- $12 million
5. The Proposal- $9 million
6. Up- $7 million
7. The Hangover- $6 million
8. I Love You, Beth Cooper- $6 million
9. My Sister's Keeper- $3 million
10. The Taking of Pelham 123- $1 million

I'm a bit dissapointed. I expected both Ice Age 3 and Transformers 2 to gross over 45 this weekend. None of them did. I knew July 4th being a saturday would hurt, but not this much.

Anyway, Ice Age 3 has already done 148 million overseas so I'm happy for it despite the dissapointing domestic gross. And Transformers is needing just one more day to surpass the 600 million mark worldwide. Then I think both studios should be very pleased anyway.

Next weekend:

1.- Bruno: 26.8M
2.- Ice Age 3: 26.2M
3.- Transformers 2: 23.5M
4.- Public Enemies: 15.6M

Final Predictions:

Transformers 2: 404 million
Up: 286M
Star Trek: 260M
Ice Age 3: 175M
Public Enemies: 125M

i think BRUNO will open at 35 mill…the nuzz is tremendous and it looks even funnier that Borat

Sure TF2 dropped 61.5% but that always sounded realistic, right. It doesn't take away from its great Wednesday/Thursday numbers so far, considering it beat Ice Age 3 on Thursday/Friday going into July 4th. Sorry Laremy, but more realistic comparisons to TF2 are recent movies that opened north of $100m; it dropped like Spidey 3, Pirates 3, and better off than X-Men 3.

My point is those movies had their haters as well but posters are almost, if not equally so-called "immature" as the fanboys who liked it, for thinking TF2 was gonna drop like X-Men 3 or worse JUST BECAUSE *THEY* DISLIKED IT.

Anyway, thought Public Enemies had the potential to be higher but in the end, it opened EXACTLY like Collateral. Being a huge Michael Mann fan, in the end I'm happy. If it holds like Collateral (33% drops) remains to be seen (doubt it will).

What a photo finish. Go TF2.

Now the problem with comparisons to Borat is the fact that Bruno opens at 3 times the amount of theatres because of Borat's weird smaller release. For now, I'm gonna say $32m for Bruno. People KNOW who SBC is now.

@Eli: SBC?

Southern Baptist Convention?
Sweet Briar College?
Southport Brewing Company?

Let's say 40M+ for Bruno, if it gets good reviews, then a big drop after that. Everybody knows it's coming out, Borat was on USA Network with clips of Bruno, the stunt on the MTV Movie Awards (guessing they showed it many times) and only an hour and a half running time. Plus no dang Wednesday / Thursday showings to screw everything up.

@Eric: Sacha Baron Cohen.

And Steve makes a great point, he's done a lot of talk shows in character, plus the little stuff like the joke spread on GQ.

Seeing as how well Borat did and how it's become somewhat of a cult classic bruno should do even better atleast opening weekend. However I don't think it will come close to Borat's 130mill domestic. Bruno faces much more severe competition than Borat and the character may not be as appealing. It should still do well in the end, but I wouldn't expect the same kind of legs Borat had.

: My Prediction:

1. Bruno – $28.8mill

2. Ice Age 3 – $25.6mill

3. Transformers – $23.8mill

4. Public Enemies – $15.5mill

Peace Out !

You just CAN'T compare the 60%+ drops of Spidey 3, Pirates 3 and X-Men 3 with the 61% drop of Transformers; the drop for this one was this high JUST BECAUSE it unfortunately had to face the anti-holiday that July 4th on a saturday is, EVERYBODY OF US know that if the calendar would have been another one, Transformers would have obviously dropped about 55%, not 61%. In that case Transformers had a better hold than the other big sequels.

I'm glad Year One has failed, maybe they'll stop making these stupid PG-13 comedies.

I guess that Bruno will open up at a solid 30 million.

Ouch for Transformers and Ice Age due to July 4th. Hopefully they will recover next weekend with Bruno as the only thing opening. Beth Cooper doesn't count.

1. Bruno: 38.7m
2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: 27m (-36%)
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: 25.5m (-40%)
4. Public Enemies: 15.2m (-42%)
5. Proposal: 8m (-37%)
– I Love You, Beth Cooper: 5.5m

I think after The Hangover, people are hoping for Borat to be another adult R rated film they can really laugh at. The Hangover has resurrected the funny R rated comedy. Hopefully Funny People can do the same later this month

wait transformers and ice age 3 got the same estimate, did ice 3 go on top because it had slightly more or because the new movies would outweigh in this situation

Well, considering that every single time the Burno trailer plays in theaters that the audience laughs throughout the whole thing (actual laughing, mind you, not the lame giggles that "The Proposal" trailer elicited), audiences will flock to the opening weekend. It's going to make a killing; I can see $40+ million easily. Between this and "Funny People" coming out at the end of the month, "The Hangover" will have a hard time sustaining the holds that made it so brilliant in its 2nd and 3rd weekends. But having passed $200 million domestically already, it's already won from every possible angle. Even if it plummeted 60% next weekend (very unlikely, even with the direct competition), it'd still be considered a box office smash.

@BR: Umm I think Wedding Crashers and The 40 Year Old Virgin resurrected that genre already….

Read this…

@Greg: I do have to agree with you about Wedding Crashers. That is my favorite comedy of all time! i was actually referring to the past few years. I cant think of any true R rated comedies that made me laugh like The Hangover.