Friday saw a 30% decrease in box office
revenue over the previous Friday.
This Friday's number one film is the
Disney remake RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN, which took in an estimated
$6.75M. The Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) starrer was not particularly
well received, especially in light of it being a remake with the
public and critics alike generally seeing it as a very average remake
that lacked the magic and substance of the original. The film will
probably be profitable for Disney however given their penchant for
lower budget filmmaking.
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, a new
opener from distributor Universal, lands in second spot for Friday
with an estimated $5.5M in revenue. Being yet another horror film
(we've already seen plenty in 2009), and another remake at that,
the film will likely recoup its budget back this weekend before
disappearing completely.
Third spot goes to the blockbuster
that has sputtered out, WATCHMEN,
losing a whopping 77% of its audience to earn an estimated $5.4M.
By the end of the weekend, it may have a shot at taking number two
spot away from THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, but that is a small consolation
given its strong opening and much higher expectations and huge budget.
Moving from a losing horse to a winning
one is this Friday's number four film, TAKEN,
which continues to stubbornly hanging on to a top 4 spot since it
opened a few months back. The film continues to only drop an average
of 20% or under week per week which is astonishing behaviour for
modern box office. The film earned an estimated $2M on Friday to
take its total box office to a very healthy $122M.
The only other new opener this Friday
is MISS MARCH which debuted in eighth spot with an estimated $0.9M.
This low budget and lowest-common-denominator film hardly set the
world on fire but will likely turn a profit before disappearing
completely.
The other films for this Friday are:
TYLER PERRY'S MADEA GOES TO JAIL ($1.4M), SLUMDOG
MILLIONAIRE ($1.3M), HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU ($0.9M), PAUL
BLART: MALL COP ($0.8M), and CORALINE ($0.6M).
The North American box office took
in an estimated total of $26 million for the whole of Friday 13th
March 2009.
