Friday numbers roll in...

The List
Wall E - Pulls in a terrific $23.3 million on opening day. If this plays like a general audience pleaser (ala Kung Fu Panda), it'll pull in about $71 million, making it the second-biggest non-sequel animated opening (behind The Simpsons which pulled in $74 million last year off a $30 million frontloaded Friday). If it plays like a family picture, it will explode over the Saturday and Sunday matinees and $85 million isn't out of the question.

As far as multipliers go, 3.0x is $70 million, 3.5x is $81 million, and 3.64x is $85 million. For what it's worth, the last two Pixar pictures (Cars and Ratatouille) had 3.0x multipliers while Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles had 3.5x multipliers. I'm betting that Disney/Pixar will find a way to get to at least $75 million to claim that best-non-sequel cartoon opening. Either way, this is a huge opening day for a very unconventional cartoon (I'll see it today or tomorrow afternoon).
Wanted - I hate this movie, but the critics overall do not. I seem to be playing the contrarian this summer (alas, this means I'll likely love The Happening and dislike The Dark Knight... god forbid). Anyway, this one pulled in a better than expected $18.7 million. I don't know the exact figure, but I know that Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider (another horrible film) pulled in more than $18 million on June 15th, 2001. That was pretty frontloaded and ended up with $48 million, before collapsing due to terrible word of mouth and ending up with $131 million (a textbook 'quick-kill blockbuster'). Ironically, the 2003 sequel, Cradle Of Life, was much better but since no one liked the original, the sequel made only about $65 million (it was also the rare case where a sequel cost less than the original - $95 million vs $115 million).

So I'm pretty sure this is Jolie's biggest opening day in a live-action film. And since apparently this is playing as a date movie (funny, considering that Jolie is tricking women into thinking they'll enjoy this misogynistic crap, crap where Jolie barely gets to do any action at all after the first act), frontloading shouldn't be too severe, so a $50 million total is not out of the question.

If so, this will be the second $50 million+ opening starring a female in exactly a month. Regardless of my issues with the film, I suppose this is a good thing. Let's see how Kit Kittredge does when it goes wide next weekend, and how Sisterhood of of Tightening... er... Traveling Pants 2 does on August 6th (vulgarity aside, the first one was surprisingly moving and an all-around good movie).

Get Smart drops about 50% to $6.6 million, so it'll likely level out to a decent 45% drop. Look for solid business for the next month as it becomes the safe impulse movie or second-choice.

The Love Guru and The Happening both dropped about 65%. No surprises there. Huge damage is done to the reputations of both M, Night Shyamalan and Mike Myers, although Shyamalan's picture will make a profit in the end (it's overseas total of $60 million has already surpassed the $56 million domestic gross and it will have already doubled its $60 million budget at the global box office as of tomorrow).

More to come tomorrow or Monday, depending on how much news there is.

Scott Mendelson