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Ghostbusters

The Ghostbusters remake/reboot/update/whatever you want to call it is your number one movie on Friday with a very solid $16.9 million on Friday. Given that it’s (for reasons beyond my understanding) one of the most controversial films of 2016, this opening is showing that perhaps it was given some free advertising by those protesting its existence and is also a good enough opening that the haters can just go ahead and shut up, thank you very much. When you remove movies with superheroes from the equation, Ghostbusters is actually in line for the second best live action opening of the year (after The Jungle Book), and also gives Melissa McCarthy her fifth straight $20 million opener in a leading role. It will likely be overtaken by The Secret Life of Pets for the weekend, but not before Ghostbusters acquits itself nicely with a weekend of about $47 million.

The Infiltrator

Starring Bryan Cranston in a well received performance (the overall film not so much), but with minimal promotion and in just 1,600 theaters, The Infiltrator earns just $1.5 million on Friday. It’ll vanish quickly from here, and is yet another film you’ll have completely forgotten about until it shows up on Netflix in a couple of months. For the weekend, look for $4.3 million.

The Secret Life of Pets

Bumped to second place on Friday, dropping 55% from last week to $15 million, things are still looking good for The Secret Life of Pets to spend a second weekend at the top of the box office. The stronger weekend for the animated family film will easily carry it over Ghostbusters and should even get it over the $50 million mark for the weekend and will send it over the $200 million mark in just 10 days of box office. Look for a second weekend of $50.2 million.

Projected Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
Projected Rank	Film	Estimated Gross
1	The Secret Life of Pets	50.2
2	Ghostbusters	46.9
3	The Legend of Tarzan	11.2
4	Finding Dory	10.9
5	Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates	6.5
6	The Purge: Election Year	5.9
7	Central Intelligence	5.1
8	The Infiltrator	4.3
9	The BFG	3.5
10	Independence Day: Resurgence	3.2