Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
March 27, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Taking over the top spot from another 3D movie, How to Train Your Dragon earned $12.2 million on Friday. It's a bit of a far cry from how much [tm:1714_]Alice in Wonderland[/tm] made on its opening day, but this is going to be a strong Saturday and Sunday earner as well as have well above average legs thanks to the near rapturous reviews. Oh and the 3D. The last DreamWorks animated film was last year's Monsters Vs. Aliens, which opened to $16.7 million on Friday this weekend last year and earned $59.3 million for the weekend, a weekend multiplier of 3.54. The 3D gimmick might be worth another notch or two here so I would give How to Train Your Dragon an excellent opening weekend of $45.1 million.
[tm:4424_]Hot Tub Time Machine[/tm]
The comedy with one of the best titles since Snakes on a Plane places third on Friday with $4.5 million. I'm hard pressed to come up with an argument for why it should have done better (or done worse). Perhaps it's destined to find its audience on DVD. This should have an average weekend multiplier of around 2.7, good for a weekend of $12.1 million.
Notable Holdovers
After three weekends at the top, Alice in Wonderland sheds the 3D screens to How to Train Your Dragon and drops 51.4% from last Friday to $4.7 million, which is still good for second place on the weekend. Give it a weekend of $15.3 million.
Last week's big surprise, Diary of a Wimpy Kid falters a little bit down to $2.9 million, off 60.8% from last Friday. This can mostly be attributed to the opening of How to Train Your Dragon. It should rebound a bit over the rest of the weekend to around $9.4 million.
[tm:5003_]The Bounty Hunter[/tm] earned $4 million on Friday, down 47.3% from last week. Give it $11.4 million in weekend number two.