| Film | Weekend | Perscreen | LIFETIME! | |
| 1 | A Nightmare on Elm Street | $32,205,000 | $9,665 | $32,205,000 |
| 2 | How to Train Your Dragon | $10,825,000 (-29.5%) | $3,160 | $192,385,000 |
| 3 | Date Night | $7,600,000 (-27.4%) | $2,457 | $73,627,000 |
| 4 | The Back-Up Plan | $7,240,000 (-40.7%) | $2,207 | $22,950,000 |
| 5 | Furry Vengeance | $6,500,000 | $2,169 | $6,500,000 |
| 6 | The Losers | $6,000,000 (-36.2%) | $2,044 | $18,125,000 |
| 7 | Clash of the Titans | $5,980,000 (-33.0%) | $2,185 | $154,036,000 |
| 8 | Kick-Ass | $4,450,000 (-52.4%) | $1,751 | $42,160,000 |
| 9 | Death at a Funeral | $4,000,000 (-50.1%) | $1,761 | $34,777,000 |
| 10 | Oceans | $2,600,000 (-57.1%) | $2,149 | $13,500,000 |
This just in: Fondue with cheddar. Fondue with cheddar.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day – they say – and I feel that way about when I’m on the money for a weekend. In terms of positioning, and sum totals, I thought we might see a 20% drop from How to Train Your Dragon, but other than that, my numbers were like “Boom!” But now, on to the sexting.
A Nightmare on Elm Street had a good Friday and was done on the cheap. If it gets to $60 Million, it might even generate a sequel. Friday the 13th opened to $40, and finished at $65 Million. So it’s also possible this won’t get to $50 Million. In some cases seeing a film beforehand is bad for predicting, because shit opens all the time, and good movies flounder. But if an audience picture just doesn’t play and you can feel it in the auditorium, well, brother, you’ve got some woes. And in this case, I could see the picture getting a “Friday fool them” in, but word was going to spread quick on this one. Reading the message board comments, someone pointed out something I forgot how stupid it was, but the film was made like hot garbage, so it’s easy to forget all of the terrible. I want to give Wesley Strick the benefit of the doubt, and think that he was kicked off early. But the dude also wrote Doom and The Saint. They can’t all be winners, I guess. If they do a sequel, I hope it follows the plot of Freddy’s Revenge.
Furry Vengeance? Who cared?
Though audiences might be responding to Date Night, I think Fox wants that number to be good, so we’re seeing the march to a near $100 gross. It should also do right next weekend, so it might peter to $90 or $100. It depends on how much the onslaught of films like Just Write and Letters to Juliet do. I think Fox has it in them to limp it to $100. But How to Train Your Dragon is obviously getting people into it, and next weekend it will cross the $200 mark, making it marginally more successful than Monsters Vs. Aliens. I think there’s some interesting push/pulls to this in that Monsters opened stronger, where Dragon had to face a less obvious premise and also the bad will that is starting to build up around Dreamworks animation. By the end of the day, Dragon should get up to or just past Kung-Fu Panda’s $215 Million.
Kick-Ass might get to $50 Million, but that’s the stopping point. The Back-Up Plan and The Losers just didn’t connect so $30 maybe for the latter, and $40 seems possible for the former. Clash of the Titans should be able to pass $160, but that’s about it. The film has been playing better internationally (big surprise), which explains the sequel announcement. Death at a Funeral should limp to $40, and Oceans might hit $20.
Three of the pictures in the top ten are remakes. How soon will we see more of that? Iron Man 2 comes out next week, and so summer will begin.