RichC2

Friday Estimates (Top 5, Top 10 due soon)

1. The Dark Knight $23.1m $261.7m -66% (8 Days, 66% drop w/ Midnights, around 47% drop w/o)
2. Step Brothers $11.9m $11.9m -- (1 Day)
3. Mamma Mia! $5.5m $50.35m -44% (8 Days)
4. The X-Files: I Want To Believe $4m $4m -- (1 Day)
5. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D $2.7m $53.4m -- (14 Days)

The Dark Knight is officially tracking for a $78m weekend (a total 50% drop), Step Brother could top $35m, Mamma Mia! is expected to have the lowest 2nd weekend drop of any movie this summer, and nobody wants to believe The X-Files did that poorly (expected to have a $10m cume). Hopefully The X-Files will get some of the older crowd on Saturday and Sunday and pull in a few extra bucks. Despite some obvious mediocrity this time around, I think it could make for a cool film series given the chance.

Come the end of the weekend, holdover sums: The Dark Knight should be at around $312m - $317m which would be absolutely amazing. Mamma Mia! will be at $62.5m. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D around $60m.

Edit:

The Top 10 estimates for Friday:

Rank / Title / Studio / Theater Count / Friday Gross (Est) / Average Per Theater / Drop from last Friday / Cume
1. DARK KNIGHT, THE WARNER BROS. 4,366 23,135,000 $5,299 -66% 261,750,211
2. STEP BROTHERS SONY 3,094 11,840,000 $3,827 n/a 11,840,000
3. MAMMA MIA! UNIVERSAL 2,990 5,565,000 $1,861 -44% 50,413,740
4. X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE, THE FOX 3,185 3,975,000 $1,248 n/a 3,975,000
5. JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH WARNER BROS. 2,688 2,725,000 $1,014 -25% 53,495,238
6. HANCOCK SONY 3,309 2,575,000 $778 -44% 200,745,884
7. WALL-E DISNEY 3,044 1,835,000 $603 -39% 190,720,890
8. HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY UNIVERSAL 3,018 1,500,000 $497 -54% 62,459,620
9. SPACE CHIMPS FOX 2,538 1,405,000 $554 -44% 13,035,542
10. WANTED UNIVERSAL 1,754 825,000 $470 -48% 126,713,855

fumanstan

So Dark Knight should top 300 mil easily this weekend. Not a bad take for Step Brothers. I may watch that in a few weeks.

X-Files isn't surprising. I haven't really heard much about it as far as advertising goes, and really it should have been done years ago.

BullGooseLoony

Yeah, I kinda had X-Files pegged for a $11-13 million weekend. It just doesn't belong in the summer season.

DeanoBKN

Why didn't they wait on the release of X-Files for a few weeks? They had to figure that the hype of TDK would still be in full swing at this point.

chris_sc77

I really dont think Dark Knight is hurting X-files.
If one is interested in X-files they are going to see it. If not they are not going to see it.

Mr. Cinema

Fox has had a bad year and an even worse Summer. Their biggest Summer hit is "What Happens in Vegas". OUCH. They better hope "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is a big hit.

Their Spring movies have done much, much better.

I would say The Dark Knight has a nice big $30+ million day today and have a similar Friday take tomorrow, which would be enough to have the best 2nd weekend gross and likely the #1 movie of the year in a whole 10 days.

TheMovieman

^^ Yeah, but TDK doesn't help. They should've done something a year after the show ended. Two years at the most.

Mr. Cinema

Would this logic be used to explain Hellboy's 2nd weekend drop? Would it really have dropped 70% of its business if The Dark Knight wasn't playing?

RichC2

That isn't true necessarily. Fans of the X-Files are going to see it or not, if you have an average film goer that goes to the movies maybe once every other month just to get out of the house, they're going to pick whats most appealing on the marquee ("Hey let's go see a movie.." "Ok, what's playing?" type situation)

Basically, I do think The X-files would be doing better if the only options were say Mamma Mia! and Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D. Step Brothers and The Dark Knight could definitely be causing an impact.

chris_sc77

Yes, it would have. Look at both incarnations of the Hulk.
Both dropped 60-70%. Its just that type of movie and the fanbase of the material. Im betting next weekend X-files has AT LEAST a 60% drop as well. It is a property in which the fanbase rushes out opening day/weekend to see the film as soon as possible.
The Audiences for these films are set and appear to rush out the first weekend and therefore it seems they are very front loaded.

auto

I watched all of the X-Files episodes at home on the couch. No reason to treat this extra long episode any differently.

Rogue588

Or on the weekend when their primary audience would be migrating to San Diego...

Michael Corvin

Yep. I imagine X-files will do quite nicely on DVD.

Ronnie Dobbs

X-Files would've worked much better as a fall release.

Seantn

Not only that but the movie itself feels like it belongs on tv (and I don't mean that in a bad way). I loved the film but I felt that if it had aired on tv it would have been a really great tv movie. It just didn't feel like it belonged in theaters.

DonTHX1378

Just saw X-Files and there was hardly anyone in the theater. They should have waited til October to lease the film for Halloween and it would have done better. They should have also released Hellboy in the spring where it would have done better. Thankfuly X-Files was only made for $30 million so it will make it's money back and a little bit over so I bet it ends up making around $40 or $50 million.

Seantn

I think X-Files will do okay when it's all said and done (overseas grosses and dvd sales/rentals). I'm sure Fox was aware this could potentially bomb, probably why it wasn't given the budget of the first film.

The first X Files movie made more overseas than it did in the US.

X-Files: Fight the Future
Domestic: $83,898,313 44.3%
+ Foreign: $105,300,000 55.7%

PopcornTreeCt

I think I'm gonna see The Dark Knight again. I'd love to see it dethrone Titanic. Please oh please!!

DarkestPhoenix

As would I, but I'm thinking 500 million plus is pretty optimistic...600 million, no way.

Seantn

It'd have to make about $900 million to do that once you adjust for inflation.

caiman

If you're considering inflation, then the movie to beat is not Titanic, it's Gone with the Wind.

Seantn

I know that, as it was discussed in a thread yesterday. However back then the movies were treated differently. That was probably in theaters for more than a year or two, right? There's a lot more variety now, so most movies can't make $1.4 billion (which is what Gone with the Wind makes in inflation). However, Titanic was only 10 years ago, so I think it's very fair to compare it's gross with inflation as a benchmark for current movies to beat

Basically, The Dark Knight will never sell as many tickets as Titanic sold. Most movies won't ever. That kind of thing just doesn't come along very often. Titanic was in theaters for well over 10 months, wasn't it?

PopcornTreeCt

Screw inflation...

Seantn

Um, why? $600 million in 1997 is not the same as $600 million now. The Dark Knight wouldn't really be the biggest grossing movie of all time. Not that it matters at all anyway.

Maybe they should list movies by number of tickets sold, that way it'd take inflation out of the deal.

PopcornTreeCt

It's well known that Titanic is the #1 movie of all time, not Gone With the Wind. If The Dark Knight does better Titanic than it will be the #1 movie of all time, not Gone With the Wind.