FRIDAY’S ESTIMATES
1. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (Universal) – $12.4M
2. Hairspray (New Line) – $11.2M
3. Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros) – $10.125M
4. Transformers (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $5.98M
5. Ratatouille (Buena Vista) – $3.44M
6. Live Free or Die Hard (Fox) – $2.115M
7. License to Wed (Warner Bros) – $1.16M
8. 1408 (MGM/Weinstein) – $810K
9. Evan Almighty (Universal) – $715K
10. Knocked Up (Universal) – $630K

Holy Homo-duel-out it’s HAIRSPRAY and I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY duelling it out for the weekend crown this weekend. HAIRSPRAY, with a slightly better per screen average on fewer screens was very impressive in its Friday debut perhaps due to the fanatical following come out in droves to support the film (or perhaps the newsletter sent out to Scientology members personally hand-licked by John Travolta did the trick…)

HAIRSPRAY’s $11.2 million take for Friday insures that the film will do at least $25 million this weekend which is far more than the $20 million or so that experts were anticipating and box office can potentially climb above the $30 million mark for the Jon Waters musical re-make. I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry was also quite strong for Universal (they seem to have copied the marketing campaign for HITCH by the numbers if you ask me) and we might see that film climb above the $32-34 million mark which is in line with what most experts were predicting.

The biggest surprise of the weekend thus far is Harry Potter’s 61% drop from Friday to Friday is quite uncharacteristic for the super-succesful franchise and is likely to normalize at least to the 50% range as the weekend progresses and more children hit the cineplexes.

Tags: Box Office, Hollywood

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