Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
May 29, 2005
Hey, remember what I said a few weeks ago about the box office sucking? Never mind.
The Longest Yard
Adam Sandler's remake of the Burt Reynolds '70s football flick opened to $15.6 million Friday, topping Revenge of the Sith by less than $200K. While not always known to be a big weekend for comedies, since they usually give way to films with big explosions, Memorial Day appears to be turning into the place for a comedian to return to form. Speaking of laughers, the last big comedic release over this weekend was 2003's Bruce Almighty, which opened to $20.1 million on its first Friday and took in $85.7 million over four days. It's going to be tough for The Longest Yard to duplicate that amount, but a similar multiplier of 4.1 isn't out of the question at all. The Longest Yard should end up with $63.9 million for the holiday weekend.
Madagascar
DreamWorks' latest computer-animated release took in a good $14.3 million on its opening night. While this is a far cry from the $21.5 million Shrek 2 took in on its tenth day in release a year ago, it's an improvement over the first day figures of the last two CGI movies, Shark Tale and Robots. Shrek 2 pulled in a mammoth 4.5 internal multiplier over the holiday weekend last year. We saw high 3 multipliers for both Shark Tale and Robots. A figure somewhere in the middle should be what awaits Madagascar. We'll give it a 4.1 multiplier, which is good for a $58.6 million weekend.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
The final chapter in the Star Wars saga drops 53.8% from last Friday with $15.5 million. By comparison, The Phantom Menace fell 26.7% and Attack of the Clones dropped 52.4% on their second Fridays, each of which occurred on the Memorial Day weekend. Of course, we're dealing with the highest first Friday figure of the three films here, but the drop is still a bit alarming, especially since Sith was more favorably received than the previous two films. It may have been bumped to second by The Longest Yard for one day, but since both previous prequels posted outstanding Memorial Day weekened multipliers, that trend should also continue here and place Sith back at the top when the four-day estimates come in on Monday. We'll give Episode III a four-day total of $74.8 million.
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Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Four-Day)
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Projected
Rank |
Film |
Estimated Gross |
|
1
|
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
|
74.8
|
|
2
|
The Longest Yard
|
63.9
|
|
3
|
Madagascar
|
58.6
|
|
4
|
Monster-In-Law
|
11.3
|
|
5
|
Crash
|
5.8
|
|
6
|
Kicking and Screaming
|
5.5
|
|
7
|
Unleashed
|
2.5
|
|
8
|
The Interpreter
|
2.2
|
|
9
|
Kingdom of Heaven
|
2.1
|
|
10
|
House of Wax
|
1.7
|
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