Update #3: Studio estimates are out for the weekend, validating what we already know. A three-day victor can be found with Taken 2 adding another $22.5 million, a bit below what some initially predicted. The runner-up is Argo ($20.1 million versus $23.8 million for Ben Affleck’s last film The Town) followed by Sinister ($18.3 million) and Hotel Transylvania ($17.3 million.) Rounding out the top five is Here Comes the Boom which brought in $12 million.
Milestones for the weekend are few and far between, but it is worth mentioning that Hotel Transylvania has banked over $100 million already at the box office with two more quality weekends leading up to Halloween. In terms of less impressive accomplishments, Taken 2 is now over $150 million worldwide. The 9-figure domestic mark should come relatively soon. A takeaway here is that the Liam Neeson-starrer is certain to outperform The Bourne Legacy both locally and internationally.
Update #2: The Friday numbers are now out, placing Sinister on top of the day with $7.5 million versus a second place Taken 2 coming in just a half million below that amount. Argo grabbed the third spot with $5.9 million and should look more impressive as the weekend progresses while Hotel Transylvania will likely share the same fate with another $4.2 million added to its now-$89.1 million total yesterday.
Here Comes the Boom did not surge in late night showings and actually performed a little bit worse than initially presented with a $3.6 million day one. Rounding out the millionaires club to start the weekend are Pitch Perfect ($3 million,) Looper ($1.9 million,) Frankenweenie ($1.8 million,) and Seven Psychopaths ($1.4 million.)
Update #1: Things change in a hurry on busy weekends like this, so Saturday morning we are not at all stunned by the shakeup overnight. Basically, Sinister and Argo switched places for Friday as audiences returned to the late night showings of the Ethan Hawke-starrer. Hollywood now projects high-teens for the movie, and an eventual drop-off landing the pic behind a deflating Argo. Look for solid Friday numbers shortly to help shape the conversation further.
Original 10/13: The first numbers are starting to roll out of Hollywood for the heated three-day weekend which has a ton of new features for theater goers to choose from. Headlining them all was Ben Affleck’s critically-acclaimed thriller Argo which was considered to have a shot for second place versus an always popular October horror flick in the form of Sinister. While the $1 million debut of the latter last night looked to cement the Ethan Hawke-starrer in the two spot, it is now looking like that will not happen after all.
Argo is delivering a $7-8 million Friday that might enable the Oscar candidate to bank $25 million for the three-day. This would be right on pace with the sequel to Taken which was widely presumed to clear a second straight week at number one; however, the fact that it is pacing about the same as Affleck’s latest makes that in doubt. While everything is very, very fluid this early on, it is expected that Argo will at least nail down number two with about $10 million more than what the industry projected prior to today.
In regards to Sinister, things have cooled off substantially with a $5-6 million opening day in total that could lead to a number in the low-teens. This should be fourth behind Hotel Transylvania (now in its third week.) Seeing how this is a relatively good horror movie, the theory might be that genre audiences are saving their pre-Halloween trip to the theater for Paranormal Activity 4. The Lionsgate-produced film is expected to open above $40 million next weekend.
Rounding out the newbies were Here Comes the Boom and Seven Psychopaths. The former is where the story lies in that this is the third Kevin James solo-led effort through Happy Madison Productions. On pace for a $12 million weekend, this would continue a downward trend among box office grosses from the former sitcom star through Adam Sandler’s banner. Do not feel bad though because he just bought what has to be the coolest house in Florida.
Nothing was expected from Seven Psychopaths as it is a Colin Farrell-starrer. Many did assume a bump was a possibility because of the strong reviews, but that is not the case as the crime comedy is currently looking at a $5 million weekend at best.
Look for Friday grosses tomorrow afternoon, and we will go from there.