Friday saw a 14.3% decrease in box
office revenue over the previous Friday.
Opening in first place on Friday was
the film adaptation of Dan Brown's novel ANGELS & DEMONS which
earned an estimated $16.5M. This number is okay and will lead to
a decent opening weekend, however this is a massive drop over its
predecessor THE
DA VINCI CODE which is not very surprising as that film's poor
quality would have affected the box office of this new film. Although
word of mouth has indicated that the film is much better than its
predecessor, it is still dogged by criticism of ridiculous plotting
and by-the-numbers Hollywood scripting. As a result, ANGELS &
DEMONS' final box office numbers are likely to be less than impressive
when it finishes its run domestically.
Second place goes to last Friday's
number one champ, STAR
TREK, which earned an estimated $11.8M and dropping 56% on last
Friday. This is a strong start to the film's second weekend, particularly
for this franchise which has seen its other films peter out quickly
after opening. The film has already eclipsed the previous highest
grossing film, STAR
TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME, and will likely finish north of $200M
at the domestic box office before the end of its run. Looking back
to the current weekend, there is still an outside chance that the
well regarded sci-fi film could end up in top spot again this weekend
if word of mouth kills ANGELS & DEMONS.
Third place goes to the Hugh-Jackman
starring X-MEN
ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, which earned an estimated $4.2M on Friday.
Wolverine and the early mutants suffered a less severe drop in attendance
at only 48% on last Friday. Although it has the biggest opening
weekend of the year thus far, the film will likely finish with around
$170-180 million by the end of its run which has to be considered
underwhelming given the film's build-up and impressive opening weekend.
The remaining estimates for films
in the Top 10 for Friday are: GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST ($2.1M),
OBSESSED ($1.4M), 17 AGAIN ($0.95M), NEXT DAY AIR ($0.69M), THE
SOLOIST ($0.67M), MONSTERS
VS ALIENS ($0.58M) and EARTH ($0.45M).
The North American box office took
in an estimated total of $39.6 million for the whole of Friday 15th
May 2009.
