Weekend Estimates: Inception Sees Off Schmucks

August 1, 2010

Inception will see off a strong challenge from Dinner for Schmucks to record a third straight win at the weekend box office, according to studio estimates released on Sunday. Inception will be down about 36% from last weekend at $27.5 million for a cume to date of $193.3 million. Schmucks hit the ground running on Friday, topping the chart with $8.4 million, but will settle for second place over three days with $23.3 million. That's very much in line with Steve Carell's previous comedy outing this year, Date Night, which opened with $25.2 million (admittedly at a slightly quieter time of year).

This weekend's two other wide openers both performed poorly. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore could only manage $12.5 million from 3,705 theaters for a horrible $3,400 per theater average. Charlie St. Cloud earned closer to $4,500 in each theater, but a relatively narrow opening (2,718 theaters) kept its overall total to $12.1 million.

Salt had a good second weekend, falling less than 50% to $19.25 million, while Despicable Me continued its solid run with a 35% drop to $15.5 million in its fourth weekend. The animated comedy adventure has now posted $190 million, and will cross $200 million in the next week or so.

The Kids Are All Right expanded into 847 theaters and earned $3.5 million for a fourth straight week of growing revenue. It remains just outside the top 10, however.

Among the limited openers, Get Low will top the per theater chart with $91,000 in four theaters, for an average of $23,000 or so. Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child had an impressive second weekend, falling just 9% as it earned $16,000 in a single New York theater.

- Weekend Estimates
- Friday Estimates
- Saturday Estimates
- Sunday Projections

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Inception, Despicable Me, Salt, Dinner for Schmucks, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Get Low, The Kids Are All Right, Charlie St. Cloud, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child