The revamped franchise launch of THE BOURNE LEGACY (Universal) is off to a solid start, according to preliminary Friday numbers at Deadline. Legacy is claiming a $15M Friday, which while 40% below the opening day for Bourne Ultimatum in 2007, is about as expected, considering the absence of Matt Damon this time around. However, word-of-mouth is likely to be less enthusiastic for Legacy, and while Ultimatum‘s opening day was only 35% of its weekend, Legacy may be considerably more front-loaded, meaning perhaps $42M over 3 days. That’s still sturdy enough under the circumstances.
THE CAMPAIGN (Warners) is reporting an $11M Friday, which would be about 15% below the opening day for The Other Guys, Will Ferrell’s late summer comedy in 2010 (that one, to be fair, had an action movie component that made it more marketable). Word of mouth may also not be this picture’s friend, but its weekend should be in the high $20Ms.
HOPE SPRINGS (Sony), which got off to a quiet start on Wednesday, is more of a longterm play, aimed at an older audience that doesn’t necessarily run out on opening weekend. It’s reporting a $5M Friday, and should have a weekend in the neighborhood of $15M-16M, about 40% below the opening of The Help and 20-25% below Julie & Julia.
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Warners) continues to hold extremely well as long as it isn’t compared to The Dark Knight. Rises is reporting a $5.8M Friday, which should mean around a $20M Weekend 4, about a 45% decline from last weekend (Dark Knight fell only 40% in its Weekend 4). Rises should hit $400M sometime next weekend, and about a week after that, it should top The Hunger Games as the #2 film of the year in the US.
Incredibly, in their 2d weekends, DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: DOG DAYS (20th) may outgross TOTAL RECALL (Sony), although Wimpy‘s cost was about 20% of Recall‘s. Recall is heading for a Weekend 2 crash of 60% or more, while Wimpy may only slip 40% for the weekend. Similarly, in their 3d weekends, STEP UP REVOLUTION (Summit) is beating the big-budget comedy THE WATCH (20th).