Box Office - Big Starts for 'Despicable Me', 'Predators'

Hey look: Universal can put one foot in front of the other! Its animated flick Despicable Me charged out of the gates on Friday and will absolutely crush projections for its debut weekend as well as every other movie in theaters. The 'toon, more a mild amusement than a must-see like Toy Story 3, opened with a totally unexpected $22 million on Friday, meaning the film could go as high as three times that much. That probably won't be the case, because if it did this well on opening day, it could slough off some Saturday ticket buying, meaning this could be its peak day. Still, with early projections not exceeding $40 million, adding $15 - $20 million to that amount is a big, big win for a studio that hasn't located its ass with both hands in over a year. In fact, the entire weekend looks promising: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse will not lose as much audience in the second weekend as New Moon did, the most positive sign in its 10-day run. Instead of dropping to 40% of last weekend's three-day total, it looks like Eclipse might hold half its audience, and that's a big deal, actually, because it means it's either getting more repeat viewing than the last one or its' actually - gasp - ingratiating itself to new audiences. But again, Friday on its own is tough to evaluate. The bottom could drop out on Saturday, and given that the weekly numbers helped indicate a slower second weekend, that may happen. So it looks like Twilight might take second place instead of Predators, but it's not for a lack of trying. The Robert Rodriguez reboot is also beating expectations, starting the weekend with $11 million, meaning a $30 million offering is certainly in play at this point. That's within ten million of the reported production budget, so this will probably be one of summer's true hits. Toy Story 3 continues to somewhat quietly set the bar for everything else that's coming out this year -- another $20 million weekend and the top gross of 2010. And finally, something sluggish to report, as The Last Airbender falls to fifth place with an estimated $17 million weekend.

Comments

[Gsearch]

I have to believe that Despicable Me is a new franchise. Part 2 has got to be in the works. Great marketing fro the movie. Despicable Me toys are impossible to find. I think they missed the boat on that one.

[Torrent Download]

Love the little girl, I keep on looking for a pic of her and saving it to my computer. Like her cute face, big eyes and very talkative. Hope I can find a toy of that for my collection :)