By John Hamann

January 3, 2004

Like a freight train bound for nowhere, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King continues to roll at the box office with no sign of stopping. After an excellent Christmas/New Year’s week, the New Line film looks like it will start the New Year off with a bang, as it continues to stay well in front of its two predecessors.

On its 17th day of release, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King continued to stay above the $10 million mark, pulling in $11.1 million on Friday night. Compared to the first Friday in 2003 for The Two Towers, New Line has a lot to be happy about. The second film in the series grossed $7.6 million a year ago yesterday, which keeps Return of the King 30% ahead of last year’s "first Friday in 2004" figure. Using the same weekend multiplier The Two Towers had last year (3.3), RoTK could pull a weekend gross of about $36 million, leaving it just short of the $300 million mark on Sunday, its 19th day of release. The fastest film ever to hit $300 million is Spider-Man; that film took only 22 days to hit $300 million, so we could have a very close race on our hands. Check out the weekend wrap-up on Sunday for more information on where RoTK is headed, and whether it has a chance at beating Spider-Man to the mark.

Also posting a very healthy number is Steve Martin’s Cheaper by the Dozen. Cheaper pulled down an awesome $8.9 million on Friday, which should make Fox executives ecstatic due to the demographic of a film like this. Cheaper shouldn’t be affected by playoff or bowl football, as it appeals to families instead of the single male. It should carry an excellent weekend multiplier due to the broad appeal of the comedy. Using the same 3.3 multiplier we gave Return of the King, Cheaper will end up very close to $30 million, coming in at about $29.5 million for the weekend. Cheaper by the Dozen is now a lock to be Steve Martin’s second comedy released in 2003 to break the $100 million mark, after Bringing Down the House surprised with $133 million early in 2003.

The rest of the top ten was extremely healthy, with Return of the King and Paycheck being the only films to drop more than 20% compared to the previous Friday. Stars of the low drop were Something’s Gotta Give (gross $4.5 million, drop 6%) and The Last Samurai (gross $2.7 million, drop 5%).

The only new film in release was Buena Vista’s Calendar Girls, which grossed a low $1.6 million over its second day of wide release (it actually expanded to 745 theaters on New Year's Day). Look for the platform release to gross just short of $5 million before the weekend is out.

Check back tomorrow to see how films behaved over the rest of the weekend.

Extrapolated Thursday-Sunday Estimates for the Top Ten
Projected Rank	Film	Estimated Gross (M$)
1	The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King	36.0
2	Cheaper by the Dozen	29.5
3	Something's Gotta Give	14.0
4	Cold Mountain	13.5
5	Peter Pan	12.0
6	Paycheck	11.3
7	Mona Lisa Smile	9.8
8	The Last Samurai	8.1
9	Calendar Girls	5.0
10	Bad Santa	3.8

View other columns by John Hamann