'Date Night' Takes Friday Box-Office, but Will 'Clash of the Titans' Take the Weekend?
Can 'How to Train Your Dragon' slide into #2?
Variety has the early Friday box-office estimates and they paint an intriguing picture for this weekend's race for #1 starting with a #1 performance from Fox's Date Night on Friday taking in an estimated $9.3 million. Nikki Finke at Deadline estimates this will result in $26 million for the weekend, which opens things up for a tight race at the top.
Clash of the Titans despite online negativity is looking at a drop somewhere in the range of 55% after $8.5 million on Friday, which Finke projects will result in $28 million for the weekend, placing high hopes on an additional 500 3D theaters this weekend. A Warner Bros. exec told Finke, "We had a huge result from the West Coast last night, and we are headed for a weekend down only -54% if we can get a bump of 40% tonight and that seems reasonable. The brass ring for this weekend is in play [because] we closed the gap with Date Night." Wishful thinking or a sincere possibility?
Now the question opens up as to who will take second? Expectation would be for Date Night or Clash to battle for silver, but DreamWorks's fantastic 3D animated feature How to Train Your Dragon continues to stick around, earning $7.1 million on Friday and being a family friendly film really has a solid shot at taking #2 approaching $25.5 million for the weekend.
Miley's The Last Song took $3.6 million on Friday (estimated $11.5m three-day) and Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too? comes in fifth with $3.5m on Friday (estimated $11.5m for three-day).
The weekend's other semi-wide release Letters to God took home an estimated $395,000 on Friday and looks to hit just over $1 million for the weekend and a likely tenth place finish.
The complete Friday estimates courtesy of Deadline are featured below. Laremy will be here Sunday with a complete wrap-up.
- Date Night – $9.3 million
- Clash of the Titans – $8.4 million
- How To Train Your Dragon – $7.1 million
- The Last Song – $3.6 million
- Why Did I Get Married Too? – $3.5 million
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid – $1.8 million
- Hot Tub Time Machine – $1.78 million
- Alice in Wonderland – $1.6 million
- The Bounty Hunter – $1.5 million
- Letters to God – $395,000
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Date Night – One of the things that made Tina Fey popular, also made her a bit of a polarizing figure. This movie is going to get hammered in the coming weeks, with lot's of direct competition. My Couples Retreat reactionary theory that any decent effort, if opening by itself, can make $30 million is now dead.
Clash of the Titans – Uncertainty about this title equals rental.
HTTYD – Excellent word of mouth; no competition
Tyler Perry – No increase in audience, only one that goes to theaters opening weekend. I've read that Easter is a big movie weekend for Afican Americans, which may have contributed to it's frontloading.
Miley Cyrus – It looks like her name above the title is going to lift this movie to a worldwide record for a Nicholas Sparks film. How many Hannah Montana fans eventually trickle into theaters is still an open question for me.
Couples Retreat released in October, a period where there were few crowd pleasing date night movies to go to. The release of Clash of the Titans last week would have taken away some young adults. And lets face it Tina Fey and Steve Carell are most popular in that group. Regardless i think it should have a decent run. And a $26 m weekend isn't bad at all.
I agree $26 million isn't bad at all, but have you checked out it's upcoming competition? Two comedies next week, and then another the week after (although a lame one). I'm not 100% sure it can outgross The Bounty Hunter, and it cost $55 million to make.
DN will easily outgross Bounty Hunter. The latter is looking at $65 million at best, and the former is actually well-liked by critics and is a lock for excellent WOM.
At least COOT isn't as unfairly popular as The Proposal. After watching that film, I felt unmoved, bored, and ANNOYED.
I sincerely hope, Clash of the Titans doesn't win the weekend. I hope it falls badly on saturday and sunday and Date Night is #1 and Dragons takes the silver medal.
Clash of the Titans was a horrendous mess of a movie and a scam by Warner Bros by converting it to 3D. I saw it in 2D and i was pissed i wasted my money on it. Imagine if I'd spent $15 and seen it in 3D. I would have been might mad.
I feel your pain. Though I was actually able to have a good time – I found the movie absolutely hilarious, and given that it wasn't supposed to be that at all only proves how terrible it is.
I think there will definitely be a sequel to Clash Of The Titans. The director said it to MTV News and at the end,(SPOILER ALERT) Zeus said to Perseus "We will see Hades again."
With the kind of WOM the first Clash has the sequel should crash and burn. It's the same as making a sequel to 10,000 B.C.
I think you are wrong. Leterrier said they were gonna shoot the sequel in 3-D. Plus critics didn't like it. Many people liked it like me.
That would actually be good advertising. "Look, we did the 3D right this time!"
Well, if they change the Director and Writer I might watch the sequel. They changed the script so much I had to watch it the second time and tell myself to just enjoy the movie. Grr…
I hope HTTYD stays longer. It deserves every money it gets.
Should be interesting when the estimates come out tomorrow. With numbers that close, this could be one of those rare weekends where the estimates get the top film wrong. I'm pretty shocked Date Night's number is so low, given the apparent popularity of its stars. Also, I wonder if there's a mathematical scenario where Dragon could actually win the weekend? How big of a Saturday would it need to pull that off?
I'm referring to the estimates being off enough that they actually get the order wrong at the top. It only happened twice last year as I recall…The Hangover's opening weekend, where Up lead the estimates but The Hangover actually won, and 4th of July when the estimates had Transformers and Ice Age tied and Transformers actually won (I guess that's only a half miss).