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Fast Five delivered for Universal with a $77 million opening and is on track for a final domestic tally of $169 million. This strong opening will push the weekend up around 50% versus the same weekend last year. The other openers, however, were ignominious flops.
And then there’s the rest of the openers. Prom from Disney embattled Rich Ross regime utterly flopped with a $5.3 opening and will be lucky to total $13 million in North America. Ouch. Hoodwinked Too! from Weinstein, with its weirdly cheap animated look, belly flopped with a $4.5 million opening and might finish with $7 million domestically. More King’s Speech and fewer lame animation attempts, please.
April 29-May 1, 2011 Pre-Wknd Wknd Showbuzz
(millions) Showbuzz Early Friday Domestic
Forecast Proj. Actual Final*
Fast Five (Uni) [$74.5] $77.0 $33.2 $169
Rio (Fox) [$16.5] $15.5 $ 3.6 $151
Madea’s Big Happy Family [$11.5] $10.3 $ 3.1 $ 63
Water for Elephants (Fox)[$10 ] $ 9.5 $ 2.9 $ 57 ++
Prom (Dis) [$ 9.5] $ 5.3 $ 1.8 $ 13
Hoodwinked Too (Weins) [$ 9 ] $ 4.5 $ 1.1 $ 7 African Cats (Dis) [$ 4 ] $ 3.2 $ 1.0 $ 22
Hop (Uni) [$ 6 ] $ 3.1 $ 0.7 $114 —
Dylan Dog (Free) [$ 2.5] $ 0.7 $ 0.3 $ 2
Note: The table above summarizes an early look at the weekend. The first column is reminder of each film’s ShowbuzzDaily Forecast for the weekend (in brackets). The second column, on which the films are sorted, displays the new weekend projection for each film, based on the Friday numbers (the third column). The final column is a preliminary estimate of the ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Ultimate number for the film’s total run in North America. A “++” indicates the Domestic number has been upgraded; a “–” indicates a downgrade.
Fast and Furious Track
Fast and Furious Films (millions)
Critics Release Opening Domestic
Positive Date Weekend Total
Fast and Furious 27% 4.03.09 $71 $155
Fast Furious: Tokyo Drift 35% 6.16.06 $24 $ 62
2 Fast 2 Furious 36% 6.06.03 $50 $127
The Fast and the Furious 52% 6.22.01 $40 $144
Total Box Office Volume
The Top 12 Films this weekend are looking like $140 million total. This is a huge increase from the same weekend last year but somewhat lower than 2009 and before. (This weekend has traditionally had a very stronger anchor such as Iron Man or X-Men Origins: Wolverine but last year stumbled slightly with Nightmare on Elm Street 3.)
Top 12 Films: First Weekend of May/ Late April
(millions)
Volume
2011 $140 (-2% vs 2007-10 average; +53% vs 2010)
2007-10
Avg $144
Movies Opening That Weekend
2010 $ 92 Nightmare on Elm Street 3 $33, Furry Vengeance $6
2009 $150 X-Men Wolverine $85, Ghosts Girlfriends Past $15
2008 $151 Iron Man $99, Made of Honor $15
2007 $181 Spider-Man 3 $151, Lucky You $3
Next Weekend
Opening next week are Thor from Paramount, romantic comedy Something Borrowed from Warner Bros, and African-American comedy Jumping the Broom from TriStar. Thor will clearly dominate the weekend but not at the same level as Iron Man 2, which opened with $128 million the same weekend last year. (The documentary Babies also opened, whimpering with a little more than $2 million this weekend last year.)
Look for updates of the weekend box office on Sunday, based on the Saturday actual numbers.
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