1. Underworld Awakening (Sony Pictures) NEW [3,078 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $8M-10M, Estimated Weekend $24M-$27M

2. Red Tails (LucasFilm/Fox) NEW [2,512 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $6M-$8M, Estimated Weekend $15M-$18M

3. Contraband (Universal) Week 2 [2,870 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $3.5M-$4.5M, Estimated Weekend $12M

4. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Warner Bros) Week 5 [2,630 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $3.5M-$4M, Estimated Weekend $11M

5. Haywire (Relativity) NEW [2,439 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $3M-$3.5M, Estimated Weekend $8M-$10M

http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/first-b ... oud-solid/

Variety

Sony Screen Gems' fourth "Underworld" installment, "Awakening," is poised to win the weekend box office with an estimated domestic take of $23 million to $25 million.
B.O. observers base that number off of early Friday grosses, which indicate that the film will likely take in $9 million-$10 million today.

Twentieth Century Fox's "Red Tails" is angling to come in second, with B.O. watchers pegging the film in the mid-to-high teens through Sunday. While matinees for the pic have held strong, observers caution that the pic has been hard to estimate, in part due to the unknown quantity of group sales ahead of the pic's release.

Relativity's "Haywire" also opens this weekend, with observers putting the pic's weekend earnings in the $8 million-$9 million range. That's based off of estimates that Steven Soderbergh's female-driven action pic will gross about $3 million for the day.

Meanwhile Warner Bros.' "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" expands this weekend to 2,630 theaters. Early estimates point to a Friday take of $3.5 million-$4 million, leading the way for a three-day gross of $9 million-$11 million.

U's "Contraband," now in its sophomore sesh, is looking to hold well. Box office observers say the pic will likely earn between $3.5 million and $4 million today and $11.5 million-$13 million for the weekend.

Haywire really needed to be PG13 on this weekend, but still not that bad.

Awesome, this might be my first good weekend in the new derby if these hold up!

The night is far from over and I'm seeing a ridicoulous amount of sellouts for Red Tails. I wouldn't be suprised if it had a $8M+ OD. Not seeing anything for Underworld at all though.

1. Underworld Awakening (Sony Pictures) NEW [3,078 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $9.5M, Estimated Weekend $23.4M

2. Red Tails (LucasFilm/Fox) NEW [2,512 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $6.2M, Estimated Weekend $17.2M

3. Contraband (Universal) Week 2 [2,870 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $3.7M, Estimated Weekend $12.1M, Estimated Cume $45.5M

4. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Warner Bros) Week 5 [2,630 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $3M, Estimated Weekend $9.3M, Estimated Cume $10M

5. Haywire (Relativity) NEW [2,439 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $3.2M, Estimated Weekend $8.6M

6. Beauty And The Beast 3D (Disney) Week 2 [2,625 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $2.1M, Estimated Weekend $8.9M, Estimated Cume $33.8M

7. Mission: Impossible 4 (Paramount) Week 6 [2,519 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $1.6M, Estimated Weekend $5.6M, Estimated Cume $197.5M

8. Joyful Noise (Warner Bros) Week 2 [2,735 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $1.6M, Estimated Weekend $5.7M, Estimated Cume $21.6M

9. Sherlock Holmes 2 (Warner Bros) Week 6 [2,485 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $1.2M, Estimated Weekend $4.3M, Estimated Cume $178.2M

10. The Iron Lady (The Weinstein Co) Week 4 [1,076 Theaters]
Estimated Friday $1M, Estimated Weekend $3.4M, Estimated Cume $12.4M

Link - http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/first-b ... oud-solid/.

CINEMASCORES - Underworld A-, Red Tails A, Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close A-, Haywire D-.

OUCH, lol.

It's definitely an arty, unusual kind of action movie, but I was not expecting such a dire CinemaScore.

Great for the other three, though.

Does anyone remember the CinemaScores for The American, Hanna, Contagion, and/or Drive? For comparison's sake.

EDIT: Googled. The American, D-. Hanna, C+. Contagion, B-. Drive, C-.

So it's no surprise Haywire's CinemaScore is poor. Still, surprised it's not even in the C range. Audiences are seriously entirely immune to the visceral appeal of those no-frills, clear-eyed fight scenes?

If these are right, I am glad I predicted high declines for the holdovers. The competition and the Sunday will kill most of them, which is why I had the holdovers dropping near or over 50%.

I am so screwed on the holdovers. But I haven't played in like 2 or 3 years so, yeah...

Red Tails is by far the story of the weekend. BOG predicted $9 m for it and its well on its way to double that.

Agreed. Twitter was blowing up about Red Tails.

From boxoffice.com's twitter:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - $3.17 million
Haywire - $2.9 million
Beauty and the Beast 3D - 2.123 million

https://twitter.com/boxoffice

The weird part about those scores is that all of them but The American actually had relatively decent legs, especially for those scores:

The American - 2.70
Hanna - 3.255
Contagion - 3.38
Drive - 3.085

I think part of the reason is that action movies usually aren't the kind of genre that call for "A+!" reactions unless it's a franchise movie or major star, and when it's the kind of movie that challenges some people's expectations those people score it low and drag the average down. That's my theory anyway.

And boxoffice.com's # for Red Tails - $6.025 million.

It's definitely not a great number, but it's enough money to pass as a fairly decent performance.

I think we have established that 3D isn't always a boost. It might be a negative factor sometimes. And I think it has become just that in case of movies like Underworld which, when it comes to 3D, offer always the same effects that loop cheap so people got turned off on paying extra for watching that.

Well you pretty much nailed it. Nobody asked for another one. It's been like three years since the last one too and what was that ? A prequel nobody cared about in the first place. IMO these movies just feel outdated to me now. Maybe it's because they seemed ALOT more popular back when I was in middle school, but I honestly don't know anybody who cares about these flicks anymore. Regardless it did about what I expected and it will be interesting to see if they greenlight another one considering this one had a $70M budget.

This series has always waited three years before the next installment, but yeah it's just kind of running on steam. I think 3D helped a bit, it probably would've gone sub 20m otherwise, this is an expected, mediocre opening imo.

According to LATimes budget went from 35m for Rise of The Lykans to 70m for The Awakening. Doesn't look so good. Without any breakout overseas it might be tough.

BOM numbers (Still missing Paramount and SPC)

I did.



The BO (dom) has been quite consistent for this type of b-movie.

Underworld $51,970,690
Underworld: Evolution $62,318,875
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans $45,802,315

...and the real money from these films comes from cable rights and DVD sales.

The Descendants grossed more than The Artist yesterday in fewer theaters and despite having been playing since November. That's a bit ominous.

With 58m budget it still might have less than 50m total. With nearly zero overseas appeal.

The articles have actually been a lot more positive since Brandon left, to Subers' credits.