Articles

October 6, 2012
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY EARLY FRIDAY BOXOFFICE – 10/5/12

 

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.



About the Author

Mitch Salem
MITCH SALEM has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry for 20 years, as a senior business affairs executive and attorney for such companies as NBC, ABC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and BermanBraun Productions, and before that, at the NY law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. During all that, he has more or less constantly been going to the movies and watching TV, and writing about both since the 1980s. His film reviews also currently appear on screened.com and the-burg.com. In addition, he is co-writer of an episode of the television series "Felicity."