Respuesta: Box Office - Enseñame la pasta!!!!
FIRST BOX OFFICE: 'Hop' #1, Rest In Flux
FRIDAY 10:45 PM, 2ND UPDATE: It's Russell Brand (Warner Bros'
Arthur remake vs Russell Brand (Universal's holdover
Hop) atop this weekend's North American box office. How often does
that happen? My bet is: never again now that
Arthur is limping, looking helpless to earn the $18+M Hollywood thought it would this weekend.
Hop still pops with a good hold (-53%) for Friday and probably an even better -47% for the weekend that'll stay strong through Easter. And remember, Chris Meledandri's Illumination Entertainment made this sweetie for only $63M. (You hear that, Jeffrey K?) Meanwhile, the
Arthur remake did what the most cynical among us thought it would after seeing those unfunny trailers. Jeez, even Russell's R-rated
Get Me To The Greek opened to $17.5M, and
Arthur is PG-13. With reshoots, rival studios claimed to me the budget was at least $85M and that Warner Bros spent "a fortune" on advertising this past month. But I just heard from an
Arthur insider "it was budgeted at $40M and came in $900,000 UNDER ... and that's AFTER the re-shoots".
Best question for this weekend: why did the comedies
Arthur and Universal's
Your Highness open against each other? Here's why: Uni originally dated the $50M-budget
YH for last fall, "then we saw a void in the marketplace for a really raunchy R-rated comedy opposite the PG-13
Arthur," a studio exec tells me. Well, that makes sense but the strategy tanked. Frankly, the Motion Picture Academy should strip Natalie Portman of her Oscar for that awful accent. And it also spells more trouble for James Franco post-Academy Awards hosting.
But Friday grosses also contained a shocker: a double whammy of young female power given their pics' middling releases. Focus Features' intriguing
Hanna grossed better than what the studio expected for matinees and evenings, and Sony's inspirational PG
Soul Surfer during the day stayed No. 2 from strength in the Bible Belt helped by
American Idol winner Carrie Underwood. But it predictably lost steam at night. What happens for both films tomorrow willl be interesting but
Soul Surfer could move up to #3 thanks to all those church groups. Refined numbers and full analysis coming:
1.
Hop (Universal) Week 2 [3,636 Theaters]
Friday $5.5M (-53%), Estimated Weekend $20M, Estimated Cume $66.5M
2.
Arthur (Warner Bros) NEW [3,276 Theaters]
Friday $4.8M, Estimated Weekend $14M
3.
Hanna (Focus) NEW [2,535 Theaters]
Friday $4.2M, Estimated Weekend $12M
4.
Soul Surfer (Sony) NEW [2,214 Theaters]
Friday $4M, Estimated Weekend $13M
5.
Your Highness (Universal) NEW [2,769 Theaters]
Friday $3.7M, Estimated Weekend $11M