Three years ago, The Sixth Sense almost single-handedly shattered the notion that August was a box-office dumping ground. Sure, there were a few $20 million openers and some surprise sleepers, but the general belief was that the summer movie season was over once July was finished.
Signs
Signs earned an estimated $20.69 million Friday. It's a little hard to say whether this number is inflated by a Friday rush factor, given the star power of both Mel Gibson and, now, Shyamalan. His last film, Unbreakable, opened over Thanksgiving, so it's not very a valid comparison. A standard 3.1 multiplier gives Signs $64.1 million for the weekend, falling a little short of Rush Hour 2's $67.4 million on this weekend last year, but still good for the second-biggest August opening ever.
Master of Disguise
Whaddaya know, Dana Carvey still has it. Despite some of the worst reviews of the year and a flood of really annoying ads ("Turtle, turtle"), Master of Disguise managed a $4.88 million Friday. It wouldn't be prudent to predict a big weekend multiplier from this one, so a weekend of around $13 million sounds about right.
Runteldat
We so crazy. Despite only opening in 752 theaters, Lawrence's concert film earned a decent $2.79 million Friday. The last widely-released concert film, 2000's The Original Kings of Comedy, had a 2.74 multiplier on its opening weekend, so it's not unreasonable to expect the same here. That gives Runteldat $7.64 million for the weekend.
Holdovers
With a $9.7 million Friday, Austin Powers in Goldmember falls a whopping 63% from last Friday. The weekend drop-off should be in the upper 50% range, giving Goldmember about a $30 million weekend. A hefty fall back to earth, but still good enough for second place.
The Country Bears drops 45%, taking in $950,000 Friday. A drop-off of 40% for the weekend will give the Disney disappointment a $3.1 million weekend.
Check back tomorrow for the full weekend estimates and analysis.
