The calendar may say the 4th of July is approaching, but it’s looking an awful lot like Christmas at the boxoffice this weekend. Preliminary numbers at Deadline have both TED (Universal) and MAGIC MIKE (Warners) overperforming for smash hit weekends. Ted is reportedly having a $20.5M Friday and possibly a $50M opening weekend, which would make it one of the highest-grossing R-rated comedies in history, above the original Hangover (although below the sequel), Scary Movie and 21 Jump Street, below the first Sex and the City, and around the level of Jackass 3D (even without 3D ticket prices). At a reputed $50M production cost, this would be a big win.
An even bigger win considering its relatively tiny cost could be Magic Mike, with a reported $18M Friday and possible $40-45M weekend. That would put it just below Ted on the all-time list, and Warners supposedly paid only $7M (plus considerable marketing costs, of course) for the film. Magic will hope to be less frontloaded than the original Sex and the City, which had only a 2.2 multiple for its opening weekend, but at those costs, even a weekend on the low end of the range would be huge. And although The Amazing Spider-Man will fly in at midnight on Monday to take over the week, both this weekend’s openings should be robust during the upcoming holiday frame
MADEA’S WITNESS PROTECTION (Lionsgate) looks like a $10.2M Friday, which would be just about at the same level as the last picture in the Madea franchise (Happy Family), although below Madea Goes To Jail. It should have a $25-30M weekend, at the higher end of Tyler Perry’s range. PEOPLE LIKE US (DreamWorks/Disney) is the newcomer left out of all this fun, with a pale $1.2M Friday and a likely $4-4.5M weekend.
The holdover news is a bit less pleasant. BRAVE (Pixar/Disney) is reportedly at $10.5M for Friday, a fairly steep 57% Friday-to-Friday drop, which even as it settles to about 50% for the weekend, will be the worst recent Weekend 2 drop for a Pixar film other than Cars 2, the one picture Brave doesn’t want to find itself compared to. ABRAHAM LINCOLN VAMPIRE HUNTER (20th), not surprisingly, collapsed in its 2d weekend to what should be a 65% drop, and a final US gross in the neighborhood of $40-45M. However, MADAGASCAR 3 (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) continues to hold well, with a likely 30-35% fall for the weekend. PROMETHEUS (20th) and SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN (Universal) should have 50% weekend drops.
MOONRISE KINGDOM (Focus/Universal) expanded again, more than doubling its run to 854 theatrtes, and is holding fairly well with what should be around a $6K per-theatre average for the weekend.
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