RESULTS FOR WEEKEND OF APRIL 3-5

Fast & Furious, the 4thfilm in the franchise, smoked the competition this weekend,
easily taking the top spot at the box office. This weekend’s other new release,
Adventureland, had a mild opening landing in 6th place, while Monsters vs.
Aliens, continued to play very well to families looking for some fun.

Fast & Furious raced its way to a terrific $72.5M opening, shattering industry
expectations and April records along the way. High end predictions for the racing
sequel were about $55M (I predicted $53M), so $72.5M was quite the shock to the
industry. Fast & Furious destroyed the previous April record holder, Anger
Management, which grossed $42.2M back in 2003.

Fast & Furious also had the best opening of any in the franchise, tripling the
opening take of the third entry in the series, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo
Drift, which opened to $23.9M in 2006. Of course, Tokyo Drift was the only film in
the series that featured a completely new cast and setting, thus making it less
appealing to fans. With the original cast, largely absent from the 2nd and 3rd
movies, the 4thentry played more like a sequel to the original and performed like
one as well. The success of Fast & Furiouscan also be contributed to the brilliant
decision by Universal to release the movie in April, versus the more competitive
summer season. Initially it was scheduled to be released in June, but moving the
date up to spring really seems to have paid off. Fast & Furious should see a
considerable drop off next weekend due to the front loaded nature of its fan base,
but it still might have enough gas to stay at #1 next weekend, something that
would never happen during the summer, with a new event movie scheduled every
week.

Coming of age comedy, Adventureland got off to a so-so start, grossing $6M and
landing in 6th place, very close to my $7M forecast. Not a terrible start considering
the movie opened in only about 1800 theatres. Despite great reviews,
Adventureland failed to lure in an audience as most teenagers were distracted by
race cars and monsters battling aliens. There is the chance that the comedy will
become a sleeper hit, but with competition from I Love You, Man still strong and
Seth Rogen’s Observe and Report opening next weekend, the chances of
Adventureland becoming a modest box office hit are slim at best. It will, however,
go on to have a nice life on DVD and cable.

Among holdovers, Monsters vs. Aliens continued to rake in the bucks, collecting
another $33.5M (I said $34.4M), bringing its overall gross to $105M after only 10
days in theatres. Look for Monsters vs. Aliensto end up with about $175M by the
end of its run. The Haunting in Connecticut dropped 59% in its second weekend
(typical for a horror movie) just as I thought, to collect another $9.5M. The fright
flick now stands at an overall take of $37.2M and should reach about $55M. To see
how the rest of my predictions fared, check out the chart below.
R TITLE APRIL MARCH % # OF # OF TOTA BILL
ANK 3-5 27-29 CHAN THEAT WEE L SAID
GE RES KS
1 Fast & $72.5M N/A N/A 3461 1 $72.5 $53M
Furious M
2 Monsters $33.5M $59.3M -44% 4109 2 $105 $34.4
vs. Aliens M M
-42%
3 The $9.5M $23M -59% 2732 2 $37.2 $9.2
Haunting M M
in -60%
Connectic
ut
4 Knowing $8.1M $14.7M -45% 3323 3 $58.2 $8.4
M M
-43%
5 I Love You, $7.9M $12.7M -38% 2829 3 $49.3 $8.2
Man M M
-35%
6 Adventure $6M N/A N/A 1862 1 $6M $7M
land
7 Duplicity $4.3M $7.7M -44% 2522 3 $32.4 $4.7
M M
-38%
8 Race to $3.3M $5.8M -42% 2825 4 $58.4 $2.9
Witch M M
Mountain -50%
9 12 Rounds $2.3M $5.3M -57% 2331 2 $9M $2.4
M
-55%
10 Sunshine $1.9M $1.3M + 479 4 $4.8 $2M
Cleaning 48% M +65
%