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Despicable Me

The 3D animated pic from Universal opened to a strong $21.7 million Friday. This is easily the biggest animated hit from the studio in awhile and is in line for a very big weekend. With Toy Story 3 having essentially shot its wad (though at $324 million and counting), the timing was perfect for something as well received as Despicable Me. It's looking at a weekend of nearly $70 million.

Predators

A reboot of sorts to the Predator franchise (hey, what's 20 years between sequels?), the action film was met with $10.5 million on Friday, good for third place. This is certainly a decent enough opening, and the reviews were surprisingly positive. I expect it to tail off fast after this weekend, but an opening take of $28.3 million is definitely solid.

Notable Holdovers

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse earned $11 million on Friday. With the biggest day of box office occuring on its Wednesday release, the film is spared the embarassment of an 83% Friday-to-Friday drop, and instead is only off 61%. A multiplier call this weekend is a little tricky as the first two Twilight entries were November releases, with the second weekend coming during Thanksgiving. We'll go with something around a 2.8, which would be a good rebound from the 2.3 it had during its opening weekend proper. That's a $30.8 million second weekend for Eclipse.

Much like The Happening, M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender suffers a second weekend collapse. After a solid opening weekend, The Last Airbender falls 68.8% from last Friday to $5.2 million. Give it a second weekend of $15.2 million.

With a weak lower half of the top ten, indie comedy Cyrus sneaks into the top ten with $365,000 on 200 screens. It should make the tenth spot when the estimates roll in as well, with around $1.2 million.

Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
Projected Rank	Film	Estimated Gross
1	Despicable Me	69.8
2	The Twilight Saga: Eclipse	30.8
3	Predators	28.3
4	Toy Story 3	21.6
5	The Last Airbender	15.2
6	Grown Ups	14.1
7	Knight and Day	7.4
8	The Karate Kid	5.5
9	The A-Team	1.8
10	Cyrus	1.2