In an unpre
cedented turn of box office events, the introduction of five new wide release openers created a massive pileup at the nation’s theatres on Friday as a tightly grouped set of top 10 films make this one of the toughest weekend’s to call ever!
Last weekend’s number one film, Lionsgate’s “The Expendables” somehow managed to fight off the newcomers and some sucky vampires as it wound up on top with close to $5 million on Friday, but by a margin that would even cause director Sylvester Stallone to sweat. Fox’s “Vampires Suck” is obviously getting strong word-of-mouth after its $4 million Wednesday debut and is close behind the muscle-bound box office dream team.
Beyond that it is a literal tossup as to how the final rankings will come in when full weekend estimates are reported on Sunday morning with Warner Bros.’ newcomer “Lottery Ticket” looking at a third place Friday finish with $3.86 million, a mere $125k ahead of Sony’s “Eat Pray Love,” which is only ahead of Weinstein Co.’s “Piranha 3D” by about the same slim margin.
Next is Sony’s “The Other Guys” in sixth place. And finally with a tiny $30k difference between them, Jennifer Aniston’s baby-making comedy “The Switch” and Universal’s “Nanny McPhee Returns” may find themselves switching places when the full weekend numbers are reported by Hollywood.com Box Office on Sunday.
