Film Weekend Per Total
1 How to Train Your Dragon $20,000,000 (-19.6%) $5,229 $158,618,000
2 Kick-Ass $19,750,000 $6,444 $19,750,000
3 Date Night $17,300,000 (-31.4%) $5,118 $49,246,000
4 Death at a Funeral $17,000,000 $6,913 $17,000,000
5 Clash of the Titans $15,770,000 (-40.8%) $4,202 $132,985,000
6 The Last Song $5,800,000 (-41.0%) $2,096 $50,000,000
7 Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? $4,180,000 (-62.1%) $2,249 $54,880,000
8 Hot Tub Time Machine $3,545,000 (-34.7%) $1,536 $42,505,000
9 Alice in Wonderland $3,500,000 (-34.0%) $1,729 $324,000,000
10 The Bounty Hunter $3,200,000 (-24.1%) $1,293 $60,378,000

This just in: I cannot choose between Real Genius and Top Secret. It’s like Sophie’s choice.

The positive: It’s likely that How to Train Your Dragon will get to $200 Million, and it’s proved to be a crowd pleaser. As a fan of Lilo and Stich, it’s good to see Chris Sanders find a home after being booted off of Bolt, and leaving Disney. Though it’s doing slightly better business than Monsters vs. Aliens a year later and with the ticket price increase, percentage drops don’t lie – the film is playing.

Okay, so on to Kick-Ass. The most embarrassing part of this is that it was trumped by a four week old picture. But if you look at those numbers, I bet we see some pole position changes come Monday. I mean, that happened last week. Kick-Ass was cheap, and Lionsgate mis-sold it and it’s a hard R that had already generated some controversy by having a young girl say the “cunt” word and kill people violently. The main thing it’s disappointing are inflated expectations, and it suggests that the tracking on this was wrong. Anecdotal evidence is ridiculous to gage success or failure, but there were a number of reports of empty theaters on Friday, and it suggested this would not live up to those numbers. The problem here is if the BO letdown translates to audiences, as this could have a swift plunge, and there’s no DVD guarantee to fall back on. Kick-Ass could still do $60 to $80 Million, but it could also do $40. Next weekend will tell the tale, but I would err toward a $50 Million total.

At least it’s not Death at a Funeral. It was cheap, but it has no international potential. It should be able to get over $40 Million. That’s a modest win all things, but the film could have been bigger. Chris Rock has never been a film star, though, nor Tracy Morgan, so the film could be said to be a Martin Lawrence film, and in that sense it’s doing numbers consistent with his most recent “urban audience” films, which is in the mid-40’s range (like Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins).

Fox has it in them to try and limp Date Night to $100 Million. I mean they lied last weekend about their numbers to try and trump Clash of the Titans, so it’s not above them. This is about director ego at this point, and Date Night is something of a quiet misfire. I had someone tell me the 3-D on Clash was pretty good. Yeah, no. Clash should get over $150, but that’s the settling range, and $180 is as high as it goes.

The Last Song crossed $50,and that’s a win for that film, Tyler Perry still does Tyler Perry business, Hot Tub Time Machine is a black eye (and possibly gangrene) for MGM, Alice in Wonderland will be on DVD and Blu-ray in six weeks, and The Bounty Hunter crossed $60. And that’s that. And that’s that.