Friday Analysis: 'Smart' Open

Get Smart took the top spot on Friday with an estimated $13.4 million. That was right within expectations and a $2 million improvement on last year's Evan Almighty ($11.4 million). Get Smart seemed a lot more marketable than Evan Almighty and it also avoided the negative buzz over enormous production costs (supposedly Evan Almighty was the most expensive comedy). If Get Smart were to follow in the path of Almighty, it'd be look at a flat Saturday and a 30% drop on Sunday. Evan Almighty finished the weekend with 2.7 times its Friday (2.8 using the Friday estimates). A year earlier, Click opened with $14.4 million on Friday and $40.0 million for the weekend (2.8 weekend / Fri). In 2005, the TV-remake Bewitched opened with $8.0 million, dropped on Saturday and finished with $20.1 million (2.5). I'd therefore use a multiplier of around 2.7 to 2.8 for Get Smart and expect a weekend finish of around $36 million to $37.5 million.

Ouch, in fourth place, The Love Guru could only come up with an estimated $5.3 million. Back in March, I wrote that I thought the movie would bomb badly, but I was later confused by the very positive reaction the trailer later received in front of Iron Man. However, that crowd obviously wasn't a very good indicator as $5.3 million is on the low end of expectations (and those weren't very strong to begin with). If I was generous, I might say $15 million for Love Guru's weekend, but given the really awful buzz and the fact I'm not even being that generous with Get Smart, I wouldn't be surprised to see $13 million for the weekend.

Although it's not surprising that Incredible Hulk dropped substantially, it is concerning to see it not doing much better than the poorly review 2003 Hulk. Although Incredible Hulk's $6.5 million is ahead of Hulk's $5.7 million, it's about $1.2 million behind the 2003 versions total at the same point of its release. Despite being a sequel, which is usually detrimental to longevity, I had thought that positive word of mouth would have saved Incredible Hulk from a 70% Friday drop, but the weekday dailies sure won't convincing. This will make it difficult for Incredible to outshine the 2003 version's total box office.

In even worse shape was The Happening, which dropped 75%. That isn't very surprising given the previous week's Friday the 13th marketing push and really awful reviews. If it's any consolation, The Love Guru seems to have stolen The Happening's worse movie mantle. M. Night should send over a gift to Myers. Some other movies that have dropped around 75% on its second Friday: Scary Movie 3, The Mist, Resident Evil, Grudge 2. It isn't all horror movies though, The Simpsons dropped off 74% on its second Friday. I'm still thinking a total of around $65 million for The Happening.