I have decided I’m no longer going to cover Friday box-office numbers on a regular basis and simply save all my weekend box-office talk for Sundays now, with Laremy still doing his box-office predictions on Thursdays. But when a film does this much money on Friday and no one expected it, it’s certainly worth a brief mention.
The Guillermo del Toro-produced thriller Mama banked $10 million on Friday from 2,647 theaters, and is expected to hit $30 million for the four-day weekend. Budgeted at $15 million, the film wasn’t expected to top $20 million and the lackluster “B-” CinemaScore won’t likely help word of mouth. Yet, this is a result to pay attention to and had the film been better just imagine the possibilities.
The weekend also marks a #1 and #2 result for Jessica Chastain with Zero Dark Thirty taking second and Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s The Last Stand is flopping with $2 million.
The Friday top ten is below. I’ll have more on Sunday.
- Mama – $10 million
- Zero Dark Thirty – $4.5 million
- Broken City – $3 million
- Silver Linings Playbook – $2.9 million
- Gangster Squad – $2.6 million
- Django Unchained – $2.1 million
- Les Miserables – $2 million
- The Last Stand – $2 million
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – $1.4 million
- Lincoln – $1.4 million
