TAKEN 2 (20th), as expected, is running away with the boxoffice this weekend. Its opening day, according to preliminary numbers at Deadline, is at $17.5M, not that much less than the $24.7M the original Taken made in its entire opening weekend in 2009. The sequel should reach $45M or so for the weekend, although it will probably be much more front-loaded than its predecessor, which climbed all the way to $145M.
Tim Burton’s FRANKENWEENIE (Disney) seems to have been crushed by being the third supernatural 3D animated release of the past few months. With a $3.5M opening day, it probably won’t get beyond $14M for the weekend, which is not only far behind last week’s HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA (Sony)–whose 2nd weekend will likely beat the new movie with around $25M–but may even fall behind August’s ParaNorman, which had a $14.1M opening.
PITCH PERFECT (Universal), in its first weekend of wide release, had a bigger Friday than Frankenweenie ($4.3M vs $3.5M), but will probably slip behind the cartoon once weekend matinees figure in. It’s headed for a decent $12M weekend, not bad for a low-budget release.
Both of last weekend’s major openings are holding well. As noted, Hotel Transylvania should only fall around 40% from its opening, and LOOPER (TriStar/Sony/FilmDistrict) should only drop around 45%, a good result for an action movie, especially with Taken 2 aiming for the same audience. The Weekend 3 cluster of END OF WATCH (Open Road), TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE (Warners) and HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET (Relativity) continue their pattern, all headed for around $1M on Friday and $3.5-4M over the weekend.
THE MASTER (Weinstein) should only fall around 35% for the weekend, but it’s dwindling quickly and will probably start shedding theatres soon. THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER (Summit/Lionsgate) doubled its theatre count again to 221, and is facing diminishing returns, not much above last weekend’s total with a much smaller per-theatre average.
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