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Dinner for Schmucks

For the first time in three weeks, we've got a new movie at the top spot, if only for a day. The Steve Carell/Paul Rudd comedy Dinner for Schmucks earned $8.4 million on Friday, good enough to beat Inception for first place. It most likely won't be there when the full weekend estimates arrive but it's going to give the Jay Roach film a pretty decent weekend. For comparison of their recent films, April's Date Night had a 2.75 weekend multiplier, and Rudd's Role Models had a 2.86, while I Love You, Man earned a 2.82. Using a 2.8 for Dinner for Schmucks, that would give it a $23.5 million weekend.

Charlie St. Cloud

Zac Efron's latest drama earned a decent $5.6 million on Friday. It's not 17 Again ($9.4 million opening day last year) but considering how terrible this looks, this isn't a bad opening day at all. I'm not excited about its prospects over the rest of the weekend, so give it $14.6 million, a figure that could have easily been much worse.

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

The completely unnecessary and way-overdue-even-if-it-was-necessary Cats and Dogs sequel opens in sixth on Friday with $4.2 million. Looking back to 2001, Cats and Dogs opened on July 4th (a Wednesday) and earned $35.7 million in its first five days. That will not happen here as it opened behind Despicable Me, which is now in its fourth weekend. It should do okay (relative to the genre) on the weekend, and earn about $13 million.

Notable Holdovers

Inception is knocked out of first place on Friday by Dinner for Schmucks, but still earns $8.1 million, holding decently as it's down 39% from last Friday. It should blow away Dinner for Schmucks in the weekend multiplier department (last weekend's was a 3.26) and therefore reclaim its throne for a third consecutive weekend when the weekend estimates are in. Give it a third weekend of $26.4 million.

Salt falls 53.5% from last Friday to $5.9 million. Even Jolie's action hits had a tendency to fall pretty hard in their second weekends. Salt is no exception and now has an uphill battle to hit $100 million. Give it a second weekend of $18.2 million.

Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
Projected Rank	Film	Estimated Gross
1	Inception	26.4
2	Dinner for Schmucks	23.5
3	Salt	18.2
4	Despicable Me	14.8
5	Charlie St. Cloud	14.6
6	Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore	13.0
7	Toy Story 3	4.7
8	Sorcerer's Apprentice	3.9
9	Grown Ups	3.7
10	Ramona and Beezus	3.7