The slasher remake Friday the 13th earns the second best president’s weekend debut with $42.245 million.
With this notion of the recession helping the box office, I guess this is just another example of that. People want to go to the movies and just have fun and escape. As scary as your mortgage banker is, Jason’s scarier.
The Friday the 13th series has been one of the most-enduring horror franchises, spawning 10 sequels, including the crossover grudge match Freddy vs. Jason, pitting Voorhees against the boogeyman from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series.
While the Valentine’s date crowd loved them some Jason and the kids of Camp Crystal Lake, they also wanted something a little more traditional. Last week’s champ He’s Just Not That Into You got bumped to second place but earned another $19 million and crossed the $55 million mark.
In third, Taken continued to show its strength as it drops a miniscule 6 percent in its third weekend of release and nears the $80 million mark on its way to a guaranteed $100 plus at the box-office.
Newcomer Confessions of a Shopaholic opened in the fourth spot with a respectable $15.4 million considering the very crowded and highly competitive landscape with female audiences drawn both to Friday the 13th and He’s Just Not That Into You. In fifth was Coraline with $15.2, a tiny drop of 9 percent and a total gross thus far of $35.6 million.
Finally, Paul Blart makes more news as the film becomes only the second film ever released in January to earn over $100 million. Another great weekend as the recession-fueled marketplace continues its winning ways. The debut political thriller The International opened in seventh place with $10 million.
The weekend thus far has generated a whopping $190 million and we still have one day left to obliterate the previous record set in 2007 when Ghost Rider led the box-office to a Friday through Monday total of $186.5 million.
The total weekend haul will blast past the $200 million mark and head straight for the record books as the biggest President’s weekend on record. Hollywood’s winning streak continues.
THREE-DAY STUDIO ESTIMATES
1. NEW! Friday the 13th (Warner Bros.) – $42.2M; 3105 theaters; $13,605 PTA
2. He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros.) – $19.6M; 3175 theaters; $6,176 PTA; -29%; $55M cume
3. Taken (Fox) – $19.2M; 3109 theaters; $6,192 PTA; -6%; $77.9 cume
4. NEW! Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) – $15.4M; 2507 theaters; $6,145 PTA
5. Coraline (Focus) – $15.3M; 2320 theaters; $6,605 PTA; -9%; $35.5M cume
6. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony/Columbia) – $11.7M; 2965 theaters; $3,946 PTA; +7%; $110.5M cume
7. NEW! The International (Sony/Columbia) – $10M; 2364 theaters; $4,230 PTA
8. The Pink Panther 2 (Sony/MGM) – $9M; 3245 theaters; $2,773 PTA; -22%; $22.3M cume
9. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $7.1M; 1634 theaters; $4,376 PTA; $86.5M cume
10. Push (Summit Ent.) – $6.9M; 2313 theaters; $2,997 PTA; -31%; $19.3M cume
