Box Office - 'Clash of the Titans' Earns $64 Million

In like a lion, out like a lamb. That's the opening weekend for Clash of the Titans, which roared with $26 million on Friday and immediately lost steam, taking in $35 million the rest of the way. Counting a couple million bucks on Thursday, that grand total is an estimated $64 million, which is exactly what we projected on Thursday.

In an ordinary environment, that would be a good start. However, we don't know what percentage of that amount is 3-D ticket sales and if it's like last week's How to Train Your Dragon results (two-thirds of which were 3-D), this $64 million is decidedly less impressive. Is it a bomb? No. Should it give Warner Bros. cause to rethink putting every one of its tentpoles in 3-D? Yes. After all, a lot of these 3-D announcements didn't follow Avatar, but Alice in Wonderland. Well, the last two weekends saw big studio movies that combined couldn't do the business Alice did. It isn't the 3-D that's selling the tickets.

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Fearless Forecast - 'Titans' to Rule the Weekend

It's an atypical weekend at the box office in a lot of ways. To begin with, the Good Friday holiday will have a larger impact than most Fridays, there are two new movies expected to clear $20 million, and old movie that might flirt with $30 million, and another new release that could hit $60 million or more because it has some openings tonight.

That movie, of course, is Clash of the Titans, which isn't winning over any fans in the critical community. Actually, I think bad reviews could hurt this one, particularly because it's a remake. Older audiences generally don't like new versions of films they grew up with - and by "older audiences," I mean anyone over about the arbitrary Hollywood cut-off of 34 - and if the remake is getting bad reviews on top of that, it probably won't help matters. Still, they're just gravy, anyway. All Warner Bros. really cares about is 3-D ticket sales in that expanded 13 - 25 demo, and there should be plenty of those. Curiously, this is about the number I predicted for Alice in Wonderland, which, as we know, ratcheted it up a notch or two on opening weekend. I really don't think Titans can break $100 million, but I'll keep my mouth shut here in the age of 3-D.

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Movies You'll Never See Round-Up

Rather than discuss each of these individually, I decided to cast a wide net of disdain over a few films in various stages of development.

We'll begin with Marmaduke, an adaptation of the popular(?) Sunday funnies fixture featuring the world's most undisciplined dog. Coming Soon says that, like Alvin y las Chipmunks, the film will be a live-action/CGI hybrid. Today we learned that about the rather large voice cast for the film: Amanda Seyfried, Jeremy Piven, Ron Perlman, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Fergie, Steve Coogan, George Lopez, and Damon Wayans Jr. Judy Greer and Lee Pace are apparently playing the Duke's human owners and everyone else will voice neighborhood animals. Bleh.

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Fearless Forecast - Zac Efron Wins War of the Disney Kids

Disney icons go head-to-head this weekend as the second weekend of Hannah Montana takes on the new Zac Efron movie 17 Again. Now, 17 isn't a Disney movie, and that's kind of the headline: How can these kids do when they move on with their careers. Efron's in a different position than most, in that he could be famous without Disney's help because he's talented and possesses whatever that thing is that makes some people stars.

I don't expect 17 Again to blow the doors off of its opening weekend, but I do think it will wear the crown on Monday morning. It's in 3,200 theaters or so, which is big but not monstrous, so a $20-ish million weekend seems about right. Might be $17, might go up to about $22. But could it do that without Zac Efron? Not a chance. As for Hannah, she'll have a sophomore slump, but we saw that coming as the Saturday and Sunday figures rolled in last week. If it loses about 60% or so, that'll drop a $32 million debut to around $15 million. Believe it or not, that should still be good enough for second place. The other new releases are Crank: High Voltage and State of Play, which should both be in the $11 - $14 million range. Crank ought to perform better, even though it's barely making it to over 2,000 theaters.

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'Hannah Montana' Pirate Arrested in Theater

The responsible parties for leaking Wolverine online are still out there somewhere, but America and movie studios can rest a little bit easier now that the fiendish Hannah Montana pirate has beeen arrested.

This weekend, 32-year-old Gerardo Arellano and his wife, Maribel Fernandez, were arrested after police officers found him with the camera balanced on his leg during a screening in Illinois. "I was surprised when they had arrested us," Arellano said. "I didn't think I did anything really wrong." Tougher to explain would be the reported 40,000 CDs and DVDs found during a search of Arellano's home and a link on his computer to a French website that purchases pirated films. According to Arellano, however, "My mother saved all of the DVDs, CDs and videos."

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