'Hellboy II' Goes To Box Office Heaven; Eddie's 'Meet Dave' Goes To Its Grave

 

SATURDAY AM: Sources have just given me Friday's very early North American numbers, including West Coast late shows (which were very strong tonight). Universal's Hellboy II: The Golden Army opened to a feisty $13 million from 3,204 theaters with big support from African-American and Latino audiences. It's well on its way to making what is expected to be $32M-$33M over the weekend. Obviously, the studio's uber-marketing attempt to humanize the Guillermo del Toro pic's bizarro collection of characters from the Dark Horse comic book worked nicely. That's why Ron Perlman as Hellboy did promos on every NBC Uni media outlet imaginable. (Even on cable's Oxygen channel with Bravo's James Lipton interviewing him...) "We wanted to make him as audience friendly and accessible as possible," one Uni exec explained to me. The fact that Hellboy II looks to make 50% more than the 2004 first movie's $23.1M opening FSS is a real triumph for Universal Pictures, whose bosses Marc Shmuger, David Linde and Donna Langley swooped in and scooped up the sequel from Sony/Revolution Studios which did the original Hellboy I. (And the trio wanted it before del Toro's Oscar-nominated Pan's Labyrinth ever opened.) As one Uni exec exulted, "We took somebody's reject pile and made it into a franchise for us." 

At No. 2, Sony Pictures' holdover Hancock was down only -45% from its first place finish last Friday to earn $10.1M today from its 3,965 runs. It'll have a $30M-$32M weekend and a $163M cume.

In 3rd place, New Line / Warner Bros' Journey To The Center Of The Earth 3D took the freeway to a $6.7 million debut Friday from just 2,811 venues for what should be only a $15M weekend but good enough for #3. "I think anytime dinosaurs exist in a movie, don't bet against it," one Hollywood marketing guru told me. (Talk about date-swapping: the Brendan Fraser starrer was supposed to debut in August when the actor's other summer movie The Mummy 3 was slated for July. Then Universal moved The Mummy to August, so Warner Bros moved Journey forward to July. Got that?)

Pixar/Disney's lonely droid Wall-E was No. 4 since it keeps going and going like the Energizer bunny, racking up another $5.5M Friday from 3,849 plays for what should be an $18M-$19M weekend and $163M cume.

And all the way back at No. 7 was 20th Century Fox's Meet Dave which even the studio didn't bother to hide was going to bomb big-time. The Eddie Murphy starrer opened to an embarrassing $1.7M Friday despite playing in 3,011 theaters for what is expected to be only a $5M-$6M weekend. It's not like this is the first moronic movie Eddie has starred in -- remember Norbit and Daddy Day Care which did big business? -- but this was "an incredibly difficult one to market," an insider explained to me. So was that other sci-fi Eddie pic, The Adventures Of Pluto Nash, which tanked as well. The general concensus is that Meet Dave should have been aimed "at young kids from the get-go". Or just never made.

Tekkið frá Nikkie D