Friday box office - Toy Story 3 crushes newbies, Grown Ups opens per normal Sandler standards, and Knight and Day regains momentum.

At $18 million, Toy Story 3 has the 29th-biggest non-opening Friday of all-time. However, if you discount day eight or day ten grosses (IE - for a film that opened on Wednesday) that were not part of a holiday weekend, Toy Story 3 once again shoots up to number four, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($18.5 million), Spider-Man ($19.9 million) and The Dark Knight ($23.2 million). It's eight-day gross is now at $185 million, which is eighth on the list, just ahead of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($184.9 million). In realms of eight day grosses where the first or second weekend did not fall in a holiday, the film moves up to third place, behind Spider-Man 3 ($199.2 million), and The Dark Knight ($261.8 million). At a 57% drop from Friday to Friday, the film should bounce way back with weekend matinee business today and tomorrow. Expect a second-weekend total of $60-65 million, and a ten day total of about $230 million (the sixth or seventh-best, depending on the final numbers).

Broadly farcical Adam Sandler comedies generally have opening days around $14 million and opening weekends around $39-42 million, and Grown Ups was no exception. With $14.5 million in the till, this marks Sandler's fourth-biggest opening day, behind You Don't Mess With the Zohan ($14.8 million), Anger Management ($15.3 million) and The Longest Yard ($16.1 million). Sony marketed this one as a broadly-appealing family comedy, selling the relationships between spouses and kids as much as between the five best friends. Besides, with a cast as huge as this one, almost any moviegoer will find someone they like. Knight and Day rebounded a bit after a soft Wed/Thurs launch, grossing $6.3 million on Friday. Once again, opening on Wednesday was a terrible idea, especially in light of the sneak preview last weekend. Anyone who absolutely had to see it right away probably saw it last Saturday night, and everyone else was willing to wait until Friday. Sure, the film will get to around $25 million over five days, but how much more impressive would that look if it had merely been over 3 days? A $21-25 million three-day launch would be right in the Cameron Diaz/Tom Cruise comfort zone for original properties. Finally, Jonah Hex dropped 74% in its second Friday, ending its eighth day with just $500,000. Alas...

Scott Mendelson