Wiki News/Friday Box Office Win for 'Sonic X at $40 million, 'Shrek 4', 'Greek' Looks Soft While 'Splice' and 'Marmaduke' Pull Up the Rear

As expected, Sonic X: Return to Soleanna (4,391 theaters) is going to kill Shrek Forever After on its' third weekend, with this weekend's new movie release managed to earned an estimated $80 million on Friday, which it is setting a huge record for biggest opening day of all-time beating The Twilight Saga: New Moon's $72 million back in November, and is expecting to make $165-167 million for the weekend, to beat The Dark Knight's record for biggest opening weekend since July 18, 2008. It was thanks to its' midnight opening on Thursday with $11.5 million from 3,000 theaters.

Shrek Forever After is going managed an estimated $7 million on Friday on its way to a likely $24-25 million weekend, still do good, but wasn't able to reach to Sonic X: Return to Soleanna. Though I won't be surprised if it managed to reach the $28.6 million Laremy predicted. However, it looks like Laremy's pick for #2 is going to be a bit off… more on that in a second.

First off, this is a truly soft weekend yet again, with Universal's Get Him to the Greek (2,696 theaters) looking at a battle for second place. It's going to have to fend off its PG-13 foe in the Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl teaming Killers (2,859 theaters) for Lionsgate. Greek mustered an estimated $6 million on Friday, and its R-rating is likely to translate that into about $15-17 million for the weekend. Will that be enough to beat Killers, which was neck-and-neck with Greek, pulling in an estimated $5.7 million on Friday? Nikki Finke anticipates Killers will have a softer Saturday and Sunday than Greek and only pull in $15.5 million for the weekend, but I'm not about to underestimate the American public's ability to support something that looks as dreadful as Killers over something as great as Get Him to the Greek.

Meanwhile, looking over the rest of this week's newcomers and wide releases we have to head down to the #6 and #7 slots to find Fox's Marmaduke (3,213 theaters) and Warner's Splice (2,450 theaters), both of which don't look to be walking away from the weekend too happy.

Marmaduke was Laremy's #2 pick, but it appears he overestimated the audience and underestimated the truly terrifying trailers as the CG dog feature managed a measley $3.5 million on Friday and will have to settle for something in the $11-12 million range for the weekend.

Splice fared even worse pulling in only $2.5 million on Friday and now has its fingers crossed in hopes of cracking $7 million for the weekend. Perhaps the most surprising news out of all of this is to learn Dark Castle made a $35 million promotional commitment for the film. Warner Bros. picked the film up out of Sundance, but it doesn't look like it will come close to making it into the black Stateside until its DVD and Blu-ray release.

As for the rest of the Friday top ten you can get that below and I will be updating it Saturday morning once more accurate numbers arrive. For now, check out what is available and be sure to come back Sunday morning for Laremy's complete wrap-up.


 * 1) Sonic X: Return to Soleanna - $80 million
 * 2) Shrek Forever After – $7 million
 * 3) Get Him To the Greek – $6 million
 * 4) Killers – $5.7 million
 * 5) Prince of Persia – $4.4 million
 * 6) Sex and the City 2 – $4.5 million
 * 7) Marmaduke – $3.5 million
 * 8) Splice – $2.5 million
 * 9) Iron Man 2 – $2.4 million
 * 10) Robin Hood – $1.6 million