Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
March 6, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
You had to figure that [bp:1495_]Tim Burton[/bp] adapting Lewis Carroll's classic would be big. Add in [bp:84_]Johnny Depp[/bp] and you figure it'd be a little bigger. Make it 3D and you'd probably bump up the weekend total a few bucks more. But $41 million on Friday? Even the most optimistic projection for Alice in Wonderland didn't see that one coming. That would be the 18th largest single day ever and biggest single day outside the months of May, June, July and November (thanks Twilight!).
300's March opening record of $70.9 million is definitely going to fall, the question now is by how much. Working against Alice in Wonderland this weekend is the fact that $45 million is pretty huge so there was some obvious front loading, and also the fact that the Academy Awards are on Sunday, which is one of the worst box office days of the year. The signs are there for a pretty bad weekend multiplier, but with that large a Friday take, nobody's going to notice. Even something as lousy as 2.3 would give the Tim Burton film a $94.3 million weekend. I would not be that surprised if the weekend estimate came in over $100 million, however.
[tm:4849_]Brooklyn's Finest[/tm]
The other opener this weekend, Anton Fuqua's Brooklyn's Finest took in $5.2 million, good for second place on the day. This is also better than expected as the expectations (if there were any) were considerably lower than Alice In Wonderland. A weekend of $12.4 million is not bad at all for the Overture release.
Notable Holdovers
After two weeks on top, [tm:4038_]Shutter Island[/tm] slides down to third with about $4 million on Friday. The [bp:200_]Martin Scorsese[/bp]/Leonardo Dicaprio film should earn about $11 million in the third frame.
[bp:1347_]Kevin Smith[/bp]'s [tm:4940_]Cop Out[/tm] is down about 50% from last Friday to $3 million. Give it $7.9 million in weekend number two.
The Crazies is less fortunate, off nearly 60% from its opening Friday to $2.4 million. A second weekend of $6.6 million should be in store.