Friday saw a 5.8% increase in box
office revenue over the previous Friday.
Harry Potter returned in triumphant
style to the box office this week. HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD
PRINCE actually opened on Wednesday to a mammoth $58M, followed
by an additional $22M on Thursday. On Friday, the film grossed an
estimated $26.8M to take its three-day total to $107M. Not bad for
the sixth film in a franchise that shows no signs of slowing down.
The Harry Potter series has in effect become a licence to print
money, and while this sixth installment will do at least as well
as the most recent entries, the huge Wednesday seems to indicate
a fanboy rush, which may also indicate how the remaining two films
in the series will play out in the coming few years.
Landing in second place, again, for
the third Friday in a row is the 3D animated hit ICE AGE: DAWN OF
THE DINOSAURS. The film took in an estimated $5.4M on Friday and
held remarkable well against Harry Potter, only dropping 36% on
last Friday's total. The film has grossed $139M thus far and is
turning in to a decent hit.
Third place goes to the box office
juggernaut of the summer, TRANSFORMERS:
REVENGE OF THE FALLEN. The film earned an estimated $4.17M on
Friday, taking its box office total to $354M.
After opening in first place last
Friday, Sacha Baron Cohen's BRUNO
took a precipitous dip in box office this Friday, earning an estimated
$2.8M and dropping a mammoth 80% on last Friday's total. Cohen's
latest attempt at pushing the boundaries of comedy has not caught
on like its predecessor BORAT, a combination of perhaps a "been-there-done-that"
feeling with the more conservative American audience not taking
to the gay fashionista character. The film has earned $44M since
opening and will at least return Universal's initial $47M investment
for the rights to make the film.
The remaining box office estimates
for films on Friday are as follows: THE PROPOSAL ($2.7M), THE
HANGOVER ($2.5M), PUBLIC ENEMIES ($2.3M), I LOVE YOU BETH COOPER
($1M), UP ($0.97M) and MY SISTER'S KEEPER ($0.9M).
The North American box office took
in an estimated total of $49.7 million for the whole of Friday 17th
July 2009.
