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Saturday
14Nov2009

Box Office - '2012' Explodes for $24 Million Friday

DateSaturday, November 14, 2009 at 12:25PM
It was a bigger-than-expected Friday for 2012, which should easily sail past our $50 million projection for the weekend. The last movie to do this kind of business on its opening day was Harry Potter, so the $24 million the disaster movie earned yesterday sets it up quite nicely for a great big haul over the next few days and on into December.

More than likely, 2012 will hit $60 million or more, demolishing - coincidentally enough - everything in its path. If the standard rule of thumb plays out here and the opening weekend reflects about 1/3 of the overall domestic box office, then 2012 should approach $200 million by the time it's all said and done. In any case, it should be well over $100 million by the end of next weekend, and probably near $150 million or so after the Thanksgiving holiday.

The other big performer is Precious, which vaulted into fourth place while playing in under 200 theaters. It made just under $2 million on Friday and could even end the weekend in third place, because it trails The Men Who Stare at Goats by only a few thousand dollars at this point.

A Christmas Carol is in second place, with a pretty good hold from last weekend, losing less than 40% of its opening day audience. You can expect that with most holiday-themed holiday movies, but in this case, because the film was so expensive, Disney really needs a couple quality weekends now to right the ship. I'm still not convinced it can get to $100 million in the US - a benchmark that is not critical thanks to foreign markets, but should have been attainable - but if it maintains steady performance this weekend and next, that appears more likely.

We'll give you the final weekend estimates tomorrow, but 2012 is going to win this thing by probably $45 million or more. Welcome back, blockbusters.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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