Box Office - 'Funny People' Opens Slowly

Friday marked a less than auspicious start for Funny People, the latest Judd Apatow movie, which stars Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen. Those three names and their track records should have been enough to push Funny People over $10 million on opening day, but the film fell short of that, totaling only $8.6 million. That's still enough to win Friday and possibly win the weekend, but for a movie with $30 million aspirations in its opening frame, $8 million won't get it there. It's worth noting that even with Apatow's two previous films and Sandler's loyal audience, Funny People opened with less cash than The Hangover and last weekend's The Ugly Truth. G-Force will probably take second place this weekend; it's currently running about half a million ahead of Harry Potter, but both movies appear headed for a $15 - $18 million weekend. And that's about all the action this weekend. That's why we predicted such a strong first month for Potter. The door was wide open for a great run into August, but Half-Blood Prince hasn't really taken advantage of that. Two other new releases barely made a blip: Aliens in the Attic took in about $3 million on Friday, placing it in fifth on Friday, and the horror movie The Collector opened outside the top ten. As always, we'll update the numbers on Sunday, but it doesn't look like Funny People is going to have the same kind of success as Judd Apatow's previous $100 million movies.