Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
August 22, 2009
Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds gives him his best opening day of box office ever, earning $14.4 million. The previous best for QT was the first day of 2004's Kill Bill Vol. 2, earning $10.6 million. The Kill Bill films had wildly varying weekend multipliers, with Vol. 1 having a rather standard 2.72 while Vol. 2 behaved like a sequel, coming in with 2.35. While Tarantino is obstensibly a cult director, it's hard to bet against this Friday and also the presence of Brad Pitt. Kill Bill Vol. 2's weekend of $25.1 million will be shattered as Inglourious Basterds wins the weekend with a pretty impressive $38.8 million.
Shorts
Robert Rogriguez's return to kiddie fare is met with a collective shrug from his target audience, as it only earns $2 million on Friday. This is, to put it nicely, a bit off from the $33.4 million Spy Kids 3-D opened to in 2003. It's not even as good as the completely forgotten Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D from 2005, which had a first day of $3.9 million. Going all the way back to 2001, the first Spy Kids had a rather fantastic 3.9 weekend multiplier, but I'm going out on a limb here and saying that Shorts will not duplicate that feat. A best case scenario weekend here is $6.4 million.
Post Grad
$1 million on Friday was enough for Post Grad to make the top ten on Friday. The critically reviled film of the week will have a short stay in the top ten, as the best it can hope for this weekend is around $2.7 million.
Notable Holdovers
Despite solid word-of-mouth, District 9 is unable to avoid the fate of so many other films this year, falling 61% from last Friday to $5.4 million. It will make a little bit of a recovery, but those hoping for outstanding legs are going to be very disappointed. Look for District 9 to earn $17.1 million in its second weekend.
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