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Friday Box Office AnalysisBy John HamannJanuary 24, 2004
Ladies and Gentleman, in the red corner, weighing in at what looks to be about 98 pounds, is Topher Grace. In the blue corner, we have Ashton Kutcher with his brain weighing in at about four ounces. It was a That 70s Show showdown at the box office this weekend, which is giving the Fox comedy almost as much news copy as the Friends finale.
The Butterfly EffectLooks like Ashton Kutcher is the victor in the battle of the network stars this weekend. The Butterfly Effect got off to a decent start on Friday, pulling a $6.2 million opening day. That figure holds up well against Kutcher’s other decent debuts. Dude Where’s My Car had a first Friday gross of $5.3 million and an opening weekend of $13.8 million, and Just Married had an opening day of $6.3 million on its way to $17.5 million. Butterfly should perform similarly to these two in terms of weekend gross, due mostly to the draw of the star, despite being almost opposite genres. Dude had a weekend multiplier of 2.63, and Just Married carried a 2.78; I’m going to split the difference and give Butterfly a weekend multiplier of 2.7, which would give the psychological thriller a weekend gross of about $16.5 million.
Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!Topher Grace put up a good fight, but failed mostly due to his lack of previous box office success. Win A Date With Tad Hamilton! disappointed, grossing $2.5 million on Friday, despite positive preview screenings and an aggressive advertising campaign. Look for a better-than-Butterfly 3.0 multiplier for Tad Hamilton and a weekend gross of about $7.6 million.
Notable HoldoversAlong Came Polly, the Ben Stiller/Jennifer Aniston team-up got off to a great start last weekend, but with two new entries into the date movie landscape, Polly has been kneecapped. Polly grossed $5 million on Friday, down a nasty 43% from its opening day, and will struggle with The Butterfly Effect for top spot at the weekend box office.Speaking of kneecapped, Torque has gone from second on its first day of release to eighth yesterday. Torque grossed $3.4 million last Friday, and only $1.3 million in its second Friday, for a drop of 61%. Ouch. WB’s awards expansion of Mystic River seems to be paying off, as the Clint Eastwood directed film made its way back into the top ten on Friday with a gross of $750,000. With Golden Globes on Sunday, it may not stay in the top ten for the weekend, but a win or two at the Globes could put some fire back into the highly-regarded release.
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