Why would Relativity and Dimension decide not to screen Shark Night 3D and Apollo 18 for critics? Even bad films have been screened for critics recently and people talking about your film can never hurt, especially if people don’t even know they are coming out. Then again, when the people do show up to your film and hate it, that’s when you need to worry.
Movie-going audiences tend to be kinder to films they’ve spent good money on, but when I see CinemaScores like these it must make the studios cringe. It’s either that or just nod in agreement as both Relativity and Dimension obviously knew they had duds on their hands. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Apollo 18 received a dismal D CinemaScore, while Shark Night 3D drew a C. It’s no surprise both will now battle it out over the weekend for second and third place, or perhaps even third and fourth if Focus’ The Debt has anything to say about it.
Beginning at #1, we find Dreamworks’ The Help, which will take the #1 slot for the third week in a row as it remains a potential Best Picture contender and recently passed the century mark, now topping $108 million at the box-office. The film took home $3.6 million on Friday and should land somewhere around $12 million for the weekend and potentially $16-17 million for the four-day weekend.
Stuck in second are Apollo 18 and Shark Night both landing $2.8 million and both looking to struggle to hit $9 million for the three-day. Ouch. Then again, a $5 million production budget on Apollo means Dimension is hardly hiding their face, but the $28 million spent on Shark Night has Relativity looking at a dismal year outside of Limitless. Coming up next they have Machine Gun Preacher and Immortals, both of which seem to be drawing raised eyebrows and the latter was made for $115 million.
In fourth comes The Debt, which opened on Wednesday to $970,532 and on Friday finally saw a nice little bump, bringing in $2.7 million. I don’t think it will be able to top Apollo or Shark Night for the three-day, but don’t be surprised if it ends up #2 by end-of-day Monday.
Otherwise, I’ve included the rest of Friday’s estimates below and they aren’t pretty numbers. I’ll be back tomorrow morning to report on the three-day weekend and hopefully make a little more sense of it all.
- The Help – $3.6 million
- Apollo 18 – $2.84 million
- Shark Night 3D – $2.83 million
- The Debt – $2.7 million
- Colombiana – $2 million
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes – $1.8 million
- Don’t be Afraid of the Dark – $1.45 million
- Our Idiot Brother – $1.42 million
- Spy Kids: All the Time in the World – $1 million
- The Smurfs – $875,000
