Box Office - Tyler Perry Dominates Weak Friday

This weekend has become slightly unpredictable. Tyler Perry will make a little more coin than we thought - maybe $22 to $25 million - after a near-$9 million start for I Can Do Bad All By Myself. That's his second really big opening in a row, after a couple that were less stellar. The thing we didn't see coming, though, was Sorority Row absolutely bombing. I mean hard. Next to Whiteout, the surprisingly decent horror flick is opening in the most theaters this weekend, but it appears that it won't even crack the top five at the box office. It made less than $2 million on Friday and might end the weekend below $5 million. Are audiences just slashered out after Final Destination and Halloween II? The new animated film, 9, will most likely lock down a distant second-place finish for the weekend. It wouldn't have been more competitive had it not opened on Wednesday, but we're still looking for a five-day total just south of $15 million, and that's not too great. It's OK for a movie on less than 2,000 screens, but I don't know if that's enough of a head start to make it profitable. Inglourious Basterds is still holding strong, slightly ahead of Whiteout and All About Steve in third place. Whiteout, incidentally, will also struggle to make much of a dent. We said it could put up about $10 million when we did Thursday's Fearless Forecast, but it might get to $6 million, all the more reason for Kate Beckinsale to dive back into the Underworld franchise, since it's the only thing she's got. Hard to wrap my mind around that, too, by the way. Only two films should end the weekend above ten million bucks, and that's if 9 converts a few more audience members. So even though there's a lot of competition, apparently, it's a lot of stuff most people don't want to see. We'll wrap up the weekend tomorrow with the final numbers, which probably won't be very impressive.