Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
August 7, 2010
The Other Guys
The Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg buddy comedy The Other Guys gets off to a pretty impressive start with $13.2 million on Friday. This is a nice rebound for Ferrell, whose last comedy, Land of the Lost, had a first day take of $7.1 million on its way to an $18.8 million weekend. This is probably closer to Ferrell's Step Brothers, which in 2008 started with $11.8 million and a $30.9 million weekend. As for Wahlberg, this is going to be the third largest opening of his career, after Planet of the Apes ($68.5 million) and The Perfect Storm ($41.3 million).
With its massive advertising blitz and positive reviews, The Other Guys is in line for a big weekend of around $37 million.
Step Up 3D
The third entry in the Step Up franchise, Step Up 3D earned $6.6 million on Friday. Step Up 2 the Streets, released in February 2008, had an odd release pattern with a Thursday opening (which happened to be Valentine's Day) and that following Monday was President's Day so it ostensibly had a five day weekend where it earned $28.7 million of its $58 million total gross.
On the weekend proper, Step Up 2 the Streets had a Friday of $6.3 million and a weekend of $18.9 million. That's an even 3.0 weekend, helped by a somewhat deflated Friday (because of the Thursday opening) and an inflated Sunday (a holiday Monday always improves Sunday). Step Up 3D does not have any of that in its favor, and the bloom seems to finally be off the 3D rose, so there shouldn't be much of an impact on the rest of the weekend here. Look for Step Up 3D to earn $17.8 million for the weekend.
Notable Holdovers
It's a really sad weekend for last weekend's openers. Steve Carell's Dinner for Schmucks is off 61% from last Friday to $3.4 million, which probably isn't that surprising if you know anyone who saw it last weekend. Look for a weekend of $10.4 million.
Zac Efron's Charlie St. Cloud is the biggest plunge of the week, falling a massive 70% from last Friday to $1.7 million. It's a setback for Efron, but he won't be calling Disney on the status of High School Musical 4 just yet. Give it $5 million for the weekend.
By comparison, Cats and Dogs: The Revege of Kitty Galore falling only 50% from last Friday (to $2.1 million) doesn't look so bad, but that's still not very good. It will get that decline under 50% with the full weekend, but it's still a pretty big disappointment. Call it $6.6 million.
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