Analysis for Friday, Mar. 28

The based on a true story, card-counting “21” took the top spot on Friday with an estimated $8.2 million. The tracking polls were apparently very strong and some optimistic expectations were over $10 million, but given the lack of major star power (Spacey and Fishburne are not even shown on the poster) and previous card-movie flops like Lucky You, 21’s open cannot be seen as anything other than a big success. Last year, Blades of Glory opened with $12.4 million and finished the weekend with $33.0 million. That is not a very good comparison, but I’m going to assume 21 can at least match that ratio and will finish the weekend in the low 20 millions. By the way, if you were disappointed with 21 or simply interested in the true story, the made-for-tv movie version is “Bringing Down the House” on the History Channel (make sure you don’t tivo the completely unrelated Queen Latifah movie of the same title).

CORRECTION (3/30/08): The book is "Bringing Down The House," but the History Channel series is "Breaking Vegas."

In second place, Horton came in with $5.4 million. That was down 47%, which appears a bit steep, but the week ago Friday was helped by Good Friday. All the movies have much steeper Friday drops, but will show much stronger weekly drops for the whole weekend. Horton is certainly not headed toward a Cat in the Hat type run ($38.3 million open, barely $100 million total). If Horton could get a 50% increase in business on Saturday, its total weekend could close in on $18-19 million.

Superhero! opened in third place with a supposedly disappointing $3.6 million. I know it is subjective, but who really thought this was going to do well? $3.6 million is a surprising success in my book. You don’t need tracking data; you simply need to watch the trailer or tv ads. Hindsight is 20/20, but the Date Movie duo had already made Epic Movie and they were able to parody a lot more movies that weren’t six years old. Given the glut of cheap parodies, it’s surprising Superhero ever tracked well, let alone grossed as much as it did. Using the non-sequel parody movies listed below as a model, I expect Superhero to come in just shy of $10 million. Weekend / Friday ratio of other parody movies:

Date Movie ($6.8 / $19.1) 2.81
Meet The Spartans ($6.7 / $18.5) 2.76
Epic Movie ($6.8 / $18.6) 2.74
Comeback ($2.1 / $5.6) 2.67
Scary Movie 4 ($19.0 / $40.3) 2.12

Continuing the poor box office streak of Iraq-related movie, Stop-Loss opened in seventh place with $1.8 million. While only released in 1,291 theaters, the per-theater average was only marginally better than Superhero’s average. Stop-Loss should finish the weekend with $4-5 million. Recent Iraq wide-releases include: In the Valley of Elah (got up to 978 theaters, $6.8 million total), Rendition (2250 theaters, $9.8 million total), and Lions for Lambs (up to 2216 theaters, $15.0 million). It’s rather remarkable given all the talent behind those projects, the combined box office totals is less than the first week of Fahrenheit 9/11’s box office ($39.1 million).

Run, Fat Boy, Run bookended Friday’s top 10 with $0.8 million. While Simon Pegg has a cult following, that has not translated into box office with Hot Fuzz ($5.8 million open, $23.6 million total) or Shaun of the Dead ($3.3 million total, $24.5 million total). The opens were small, but you can see the box office longevity was excellent. Fat Boy will come up with around $2-3 million, but the test of success will be whether it can show some legs and finish its run with near $20 million.

Overall, this Friday was down 20-30% against last week, last year and two years ago. 2007 had Blades of Glory and Meet the Robinsons while 2006 had Ice Age 2. Looking at the upcoming schedule, 2008 doesn’t seem to have much help on the way. Forgetting Sarah Marshall looks like April’s best hope.