Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
June 17, 2006
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jack Black's marketed out the wazoo wrestling comedy earned the top spot on Friday with $10.9 million. Recent Black movies don't do too well as comparisons since his last true leading role was School of Rock, which is much more of a family movie than this goofball comedy. We could look at 2001's Shallow Hal at 3.03, but even that was more of a date movie than Nacho Libre is. Give it a 2.7 multiplier, still good for a solid $29.4 million weekend.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
It's a $9.2 million opening for 3 Fast 3 Furious Tokyo Drift. That's a steep drop from 2 Fast 2 Furious' $19.6 million en route to a $50 million weekend, but since there were considerably lower expectations here, it's pretty good. It should be closer to the 2.72 weekend multiplier of The Fast and the Furious than the 2.56 of the sequel, so we'll go with a 2.7 multiplier for the weekend, which would give Tokyo Drift $24.8 million.
The Lake House
Rather undermarketed (or perhaps being male, I don't watch the right channels), the reteaming of Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in The Lake House earned $5 million Friday. Of all the openers this weekend, this film is the one that Father's Day is most likely to impact negatively. That should be counteracted a little bit by a decent Saturday, but it will be somewhat noticable when the weekend estimates are released. As a pure chick flick, it should definitely leg it out over the summer, though. Look for the Lake House to earn about $13 million this weekend.
Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties
The sequel that absolutely nobody was clamoring for earned $2.4 million. Indeed, that's down a ways from the $8 million earned by Garfield on this weekend just two years ago. The original didn't have a very kid-friendly multiplier, with a 2.71, and with Cars around to keep things in check, it won't improve all that much either. Figure a weekend total of about $6.7 million.
Cars
The Pixar movie does drop 53% from last Friday, but it's the rest of the weekend where the real money is made. Cars did have a 3.04 multiplier last weekend, and that should increase easily as it won't be affected much by Father's Day. It did fall to third place on the Friday numbers, but it'll stay on top, barely, when the weekend estimates come out, with around $31.3 million.