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This is January, right?

Gran Torino

Expanding into wide release, Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino explodes with a $10.7 million Friday. For those keeping score at home, that would be a rather hilarious 924% increase from last Friday and nearly doubles what the film had made in limited release to this point. This is an unexpectedly outstanding performance and despite not having a Golden Globes nomination, perhaps has seen its stock increase as an Academy Awards contender in one or more categories. A $31.3 million weekend is a solid, solid figure and one of the top openings for the month of January.

The Unborn

January is also a perfect time for horror films to succeed and The Unborn doesn't change that notion, pulling in $9 million. The Unborn should see your standard below-average weekend multiplier, so look for it to come in with a still really good $22.5 million weekend.

Bride Wars

The Anne Hathaway/Kate Hudson comedy is third among this weekend's opening releases with $8.2 million. I see this as having a bit more appeal over the remainder of the weekend than The Unborn and should likely pull ahead of it when the weekend estimates come in. Give Bride Wars $23.6 million

Not Easily Broken

Based off a T.D. Jakes book, Not Easily Broken earns $2.2 million on Friday in just 724 theaters. In 2004, another Jakes book, Woman, Thou Art Loosed opened to $2.3 million on a mere 408 screens. I expect a similar path here for Not Easily Broken, giving it a decent $6.1 million for the weekend.

Notable Holdovers

It's a big post holiday crash for all our December films as nobody is safe from an over 50% decline. Marley and Me is off 65%, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button falls 55%, Bedtime Stories tumbles 73% and Valkyrie drops 58%.

Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
Projected Rank	Film	Estimated Gross
1	Gran Torino	31.3
2	Bride Wars	23.6
3	The Unborn	22.5
4	Marley and Me	9.7
5	The Curious Case of Benjamin Button	9.5
6	Bedtime Stories	6.7
7	Valkyrie	6.5
8	Not Easily Broken	6.1
9	Yes Man	5.8
10	Seven Pounds	3.6