Studio Estimates
1. Moneyball - $6,750,000 - $6,750,000
2. The Lion King 3D - $6,050,000 - $45,596,000
3. Dolphin Tale - $5,110,000 - $5,110,000
4. Abduction - $3,800,000 - $3,800,000
5. Killer Elite - $3,500,000 - $3,500,000
6. Contagion - $2,625,000 - $51,182,000
7. Drive(2011) - $1,882,000 - $17,535,000
8. The Help - $1,310,000 - $151,354,000
9. Straw Dogs - $685,000 - $7,469,000
10. I Don't Know How She Does It - $677,000 - $6,643,000
. Warrior - $350,000 - $11,440,000
. Rise of the Planet of the Apes - $320,000 - $172,759,000
. Colombiana - $275,000 - $34,460,000
. Crazy Stupid Love - $250,000 - $81,536,000
. Machine Gun Preacher - $10,000 -$10,000

http://admin.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/
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Nikki's Guestimates - Friday 11pm
1. Moneyball (Sony) Week 1 [2,993 Theaters]
Friday $6.8M, Estimated Weekend $20M, Estimated Cume $20M

2. The Lion King 3D (Buena Vista) Week 2 [2,330 Theaters]
Friday $6.1M, Estimated Weekend $20M, Estimated Cume $60M

3. Dolphin Tale (Warner Bros.) Week 1 [3,507 Theaters]
Friday $5M-$5.5M, Estimated Weekend $24M, Estimated Cume $24M

4. Abduction (Lionsgate) Week 1 [3,118 Theaters]
Friday $4.2M, Estimated Weekend $11M, Estimated Cume $11M

5. Killer Elite (Open Road Films) Week 1 [2,986 Theaters]
Friday $3.5M, Estimated Weekend $10M, Estimated Cume $10M

6. Contagion (Participant/Warner Bros) Week 3 [3,136 Theaters]
Friday $2.8M, Estimated Weekend $9M, Estimated Cume $57.5M

7. Drive (FilmDistrict) Week 2 [2,904 Theaters]
Friday $2M (-50%), Estimated Weekend $6M, Estimated Cume $21.6M

8. The Help (Participant/DreamWorks/Disney] Week 7 [2,695 Theaters]
Friday $1.3M, Estimated Weekend $4.5M, Estimated cume $154.5M

9. I Don’t Know How She Does It (Weinstein Co) Week 2 [2,490 Theaters]
Friday $700K (-55%), Estimated weekend $2M, Estimated Cume $8M

10. Straw Dogs (Sony) Week 2 [2,408 Theaters]
Friday $600K (-62%), Estimated Weekend $1.8M, Estimated Cume $8.5M
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Nikki's Guestimates - Friday 6pm
Dolphin Tale - more than $6m - $24M for the weekend
Moneyball - $8M Friday - mid-$20sM for the weekend
Abduction - $4.5M Friday - mid-teens for the weekend
Killer Elite - $5M today - low teens for the weekend

Lion King 3D - mid-teens for the weekend

http://www.deadline.com/2011/09/first-b ... r-elite-4/

Well, if accurate, pretty mediocre for Abduction, and pretty fantastic for everything else. 20m+ would be simply extraordinary for dolphin tale imo, and while there may be better candidates it's nice to have a breakout. Moneyball looking very very good too, 100m looks possible.

Numbers up now are a little different.

Despite competition from Dolphin Tale and a huge opening last weekend, The Lion King is holding up terrifically. It's really too bad it's already being released to Blu-ray October 4th as this could have added another 100 Million to its total.

Incredibly nice opening for Dolphin Tale and with that A+ CinemaScore rating it looks like legs will be great. Isn't this only the 16th movie to ever receive an A+?

I really want to know how Drive held up, even if I'm scared to find out.

Her weekend projection on Dolphin Tale is way off. It'll be more like around $18m from a $5.5m start. The Lion King is the one to have a shot at $24m for the weekend.

Yeah, Dolphin Tale would need more than a 60% increase on Saturday. I'm seeing a weekend close to 20 Million though if it does 5.5 Million for Friday. I'm thinking maybe a 50% Saturday increase. Would be cool if it could pass 20 Million.

Very few films could achieve a $10K PTA on their second weekend of wide release when under 2,500 theaters. The Sixth Sense is the only one I saw from the few I searched. And The Lion King, a re-release, could do that this weekend. Pretty incredible.

There are more up. Drive is estimated to have a 50% drop from last Friday to 2 Million. Please be true! It would be a bit better hold than I predicted and could end up getting to 30 Million if its drop isn't too steep. Surprisingly it appears to have held up better than I Don't Know How She Does It and Straw Dogs. Looks like the great reviews were able to win out over the poor WOM from audiences.

First post updates with new numbers. As expected the numbers are way off from the initial guesstimates/projections.

This is turning out to be a really strong weekend. September 2011 could turn out bigger than expected with Top 3 movies of this weekend

DT FTW!

In terms of CinemaScore, Dolphin Tale got an A+ and Moneyball got an A, respectively.

http://www.boxoffice.com/statistics/bo_ ... 2011-09-24

BO has a couple of Early Weekend Estimates...

BO has now the Top Five:

$6.75m MONEYBALL
$6.05m LION KING
$5.11m DOLPHIN
$3.8m ABDUCTION
$3.7m KILLER ELITE

Where did you get those numbers mark ? I can't seem to find them at BO

They're in the left column (text)

aah i see thanks

It's very surprising, but The Lion King's re-release will essentially DOUBLE the number of weeks The Lion King has been at #1 in total. As huge as the original film was, it was only at #1 for two weekends.

The top 10 tally is at $104 m estimated. The biggest September weekend of all time was Sep. 27–29, 2002, at $91,795,628, when Sweet Home Alabama opened!

So even though the opening weekend record won't be broken this weekend, the biggest September weekend total record will! All of the other top 12 weekend total records for Jan-Dec aside from September are all from the past four years, so this is a record 9 years old, no other month even comes close!!!

Top 12 total could be at $107 m! So not only will this become the biggest September weekend ever in all likeliness, it will break the previous record by 17%!!

^ Wow goes to show how big this weekend is. Very nice analysis as always O

BOM numbers are also up now. First post updated with numbers....

http://admin.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/

So it looks like outside of TLK's second weekend hold and the solid opening of DT everything else was pretty MEH ! MB should have great legs considering it got an A Cinemascore, but the same can't be said for either Abduction or Killer Elite. I'm actually glad Abduction didn't breakout too. It looked terrible from the begining and reviews only made it seem worse. All that media hype about Lautner being the next action star is the only reason I went high on it in the first place, but it's obvious outside of those Twilight loving tweens that nobody wants to see this dude in an action movie. He should just stick to the Twilight series and get those nice round paychecks like everyone else.

Moneyball got an A, not an A+. Dolphin Tale got the A+.


Drive dropped 53.1%. Could have been worse. I'm hoping it can drop below 50% for the weekend. That would be incredible.

It is not looking as good for Machine Gun Preacher. It looks like IDKHSDI is going to loos again this weekend to SD(2011)....that would be really poor for it.

Moneyball is still looking to win this weekend among openers. DT though looks like it will make more than MB which would be amazing.
Depending on next weekend drop it looks like TLK will be very close to MB in the end and will end up in Top 3 movies of the month....simply amazing.

The Lion King's performance has been incredibly impressive and is a testament to just how beloved the film is. It dwarfs what The Little Mermaid reissue pulled in in 1997, and actually harkens back to when the original Star Wars trilogy was re-released that same year.

I feel like calling Moneyball's opening "slightly disappointing" is...eh. I think it's going to have a healthy Saturday jump and will come in over $20M, which is what I expected personally. And with the apparently glowing word-of-mouth and reviews, I can't see it not holding well.

Dolphin Tale is definitely a big winner as well. Abduction and Killer Elite did OK. I actually expected Drive to hold worse.

Recent weekends specifically make me feel like people are increasingly paying closer attention to both reviews and originality - something I've not felt was so entirely obvious before.

I agree. With so much competition and bad WOM from general audiences I was expecting it to be hit harder. Glad I was wrong though. I personally think a 30 Million gross for the film is great. FilmDistrict did a nice job with this one.

+1