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Deadline has preliminary numbers for Friday, and they suggest BREAKING DAWN PART 1 will continue to narrowly edge out the opening weekend of New Moon in 2009, with a $73.5M Friday (compared to $72.7M for New Moon). If the number holds, and if Breaking Dawn 1 doesn’t turn out to be more front-loaded than New Moon, that movie’s pattern would lead to a $144M weekend, which would be the biggest 3-day opening of the franchise (Eclipse opened over the 5-day 4th of July weekend last year) and the 4th biggest opening weekend ever, behind only the final Harry Potter, The Dark Knight, and Spider-Man 3.
The news was far less good for HAPPY FEET 2, which is looking at a very blah $6M Friday, half what the original Happy Feet did in 2006. If Feet 2 follows the same trajectory as the original, that could mean a bleak $20-22M weekend–with giant competition from no less than 3 new family films arriving in the market on Wednesday.
THE DESCENDANTS seems to be off to a strong start with $300K in only 29 theatres, heading for a $1M+ weekend. That would be a very good $35K per-theatre average, although it pales next to the $80K per-theatre number Fox Searchlight pulled last year in 18 theatres with its Black Swan opening.
Holdovers are looking overwhelmed by the Twilight franchise juggernaut. IMMORTALS, not surprisingly, is facing a 60% plunge to a $12M second weekend, and JACK AND JILL isn’t much better, falling at least 50% to $11-12M, which guarantees it will be Adam Sandler’s biggest franchise flop in a decade. A little more surprisingly, J. EDGAR, despite its older audience, is heading for a $6M 2d weekend, down a heavy 45% that’s worse than Hereafter‘s second weekend drop. Boxoffice like that won’t help it stay alive in the Oscar race.
Stay with SHOWBUZZDAILY all weekend for updated boxoffice numbers and analysis…
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