*shudder*

It looks to me like Covenant has a chance at double digits.

I dont know what scares me most:

a) A film topped the box office with only $6 m
b) A film called "Dickie Roberts" topped the box office with only $6 m
c) A film called "Dickie Roberts" starring David Spade topped the box office with only $6 m
d) A film called "Dickie Roberts" starring David Spad who is now somehow dating Heather Locklear topped the box office with only $6 m...

I think The Covenant should still do $10m+ this weekend, but overall, the weekend might be in the $50m's for the top twelve this weekend. And that's just pathetic.

Or the root cause of a-d....the steaming pile of crap being greenlit in the first place.

Yes, but early September is always like this. The market's always at its lowest levels at this time of the year.

We were just spoiled by Exorcism of Emily Rose opening to $30M last year.

The Covenant 487, 312 Friday, +32, B-
Hollywoodland 185, +22, B
The Protector 233, +8, B

The Protector seems to be in the biggest trouble. Hollywoodland could still make $2.5m Friday and have an $8m weekend. The Covenant should make $3.5m at least and over $10m over 3 days as the IM for a PG-13 horror movie in September is normally fine.

The Covenant 528, 353 +41
Hollywoodland 194 +9
The Protector 249 +16

Barring any huge updates, I see the following:

The Covenant - $3.25M-$3.75M
Hollywoodland - $2.0M-$2.5M
The Protector - $1.0M-$1.5M

I'm not convinced we'll see a $10M weekend for The Covenant, depending on how frontloaded it is. All 17 of our presales were for tonight, which may suggest a weaker IM.

I think The Covenant will reach $4m for Friday. Getting 73 reviews the last two hours is pretty good. The pattern is very backloaded, comparing to the other two.

Good point. Notfabio also reported it is doing numbers similar to Crank. I expect Hollywoodland to have an IM of 3.0+, so it has a shot at exceeding tracking.

The Covenant 540, 365 Friday, +12, B-
Hollywoodland 195, +1, B
The Protector 256, +7, B

Entertainment tab at yahoo has an article about Hollywoodland with a link to the page. It's not the main entertainment article though; one about Pitt is. Perhaps it was earlier which would be similar to a front page effect. That would explain why it's slower now. I don't think we can know, but perhaps look out for it in the future.

Final numbers:

The Covenant 598, 423 Friday, +58, B-
Hollywoodland 221, +26, B
The Protector 295, +39, B

Projections:

The Covenant - $3.7-4.1m
Hollywoodland - $2.2-2.5m
The Protector - $1.3-1.6m

Those Friday numbers would look good for my derby.

Your derby always looks good doesn't it?

That's why I'm one of the best.

Maybe you cheat...

The crowd reports seem to suggest $4M is the celing for The Covenant. If it did mirror Crank, we are probably looking at $3.5M. From all accounts, Hollywoodland did pretty well given the lackluster weekend.

The Covenant - $3.5 - 3.8 million
Hollywoodland - $2.3 - $2.75 million
The Protector - $1.5 - $1.6 million

The Covenant 423 (Friday) $3,190,000 132.60
Hollywoodland 221 $1,899,000 116.37
The Protector 295 $1,841,000 160.24

Not too far off.

Well, ratio was higher then expected, so I think there is a good chance that the article had an impact on Hollywoodland. A ratio over 100 does seem unusual for this type of film.

Another good weekend for Yahoo. The Covenant's ratio was a little higher than I thought, but nearly mirrored Emily Rose's. Hollywoodland was also a little higher than projected, but there wasn't a solid comparison film for it. The Protector continued to affirm the trend of lower ratios compared to previous years.

Hollywoodland should be a relatively good comparison for The Black Dahlia, right?

It technically should be a good comparison, but considering how strong it's been on the Yahoo Buzz Chart, I wouldn't be surprised to see a significantly higher ratio. Perhaps closer to Sin City's ratio of 164.