UPDATED - Friday Box-Office: 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' Heading Toward $50+ Million Opening

UDPATE: Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com reports on Twitter that Rise of the Planet of the Apes has outperformed early Friday estimates with big late night results from the West Coast and ended Friday with an official estimate of $19.75 million. Such a return moves the film to a projected $50+ million weekend. I must say, I love to hear it.

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:

I have a busy Saturday ahead of me so I am going with early Friday estimates courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter this week, and it seems things are pretty much sticking to the tracking numbers.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes was tracking to open from $42-45 million and after an estimated $18 million on Friday, which includes $1.254 million from midnight screenings, the film should land right around there. Of course, should word of mouth boost the film’s status it could overperform and with it receiving an A- CinemaScore there is a good chance that may happen.

Things are also on track for The Change-Up to land the $12-15 million it was expected to make after $4.5 million on Friday. Yes, reviews were bad (though mine wasn’t), but that’s never been a box-office indicator. The only reason I can assume this film isn’t performing any better is due to the premise.

Nikki Finke is blaming it on Ryan Reynolds, which seems a bit odd considering he’s only half of the lead cast. Or has it been decided Jason Bateman is Teflon? I’m only asking… I love the guy.

When it comes to holdovers, we’ll get to Cowboys & Aliens in a second, but The Smurfs is holding over nicely, landing in the #2 spot on Friday with an estimated $5.7 million on its way to a likely $20 million, a 43% drop from its opening weekend.

As for Cowboys & Aliens, we’re looking at a 64% drop from one Friday to the next. Cowboys is currently in third with an estimated $4.7 million, which creates a battle for third between Cowboys and Change-Up. Not pretty considering Cowboys & Aliens was made for a reported $163 million. It would seem the answer to my editorial from earlier this year is… Yes.

Before studios and fans made their way to this year’s San Diego Comic Con, the New York Times wrote an article saying studios were reassessing whether or not it was worthwhile to bring their films to the comic book convention. Last year Universal was burned by a rapturous reception for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World only to watch it falter at the box-office. This year the response to Cowboys & Aliens wasn’t as glowing and the box-office numbers appear to be reflecting that opinion. I would have to assume Universal won’t make the same mistake a third time.

As for the Friday top ten, I will update it later in the day when I finally get a chance along with the rest of the numbers in this article once they are official estimates. For now, here is what we have so far: