Transformers: Dark of the Moon won its second consecutive Friday at the North American box office with an estimated $14.9 million in ticket sales. Its comedic competition proved to be in stark contrast to one another in their debuts.
Compared to its first Friday a week ago, Transformers 3 dropped an expected 55% from $33 million. At its current pace, the sequel should eclipse The Hangover Part II as the highest grossing film of the year sometime in the next few days.
Despite the strong top showing by Michael Bay’s final otherworldly robotic adventure, Warner Bros. and New Line are toasting to the first day earnings of Horrible Bosses. The R-rated comedy starring Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Kevin Spacey and Jamie Foxx excelled in raking in $9.9 million in its debut. It should fall somewhere between $25 and $30 million through Sunday, a range that R-rated comedies are targeting to meet or exceed more frequently following in the footsteps of The Hangover Part II, Bridesmaids and Bad Teacher.
Third place on Friday went to the Kevin James comedy Zookeeper with $7.4 million. This marks the second consecutive opening for a James film in the bottom two earnings-wise on his entire resume. Still, Zookeeper should pick up a little momentum on Saturday and Sunday with family outings and could top the $20 million mark through its first three days in theaters.
Fourth and fifth place went to a pair of films that each more than leveled off after sharp drops the previous weekends. Disney and Pixar’s Cars 2 slid a mere 39% to come in at $4.8 million, while the other R-rated comedy Bad Teacher shrugged off the adversarial presence of Horrible Bosses and accumulated $3 million. Both films are on track to top $10 million by close of business Sunday.
Speaking of Sunday, stop back sometime during the afternoon for the complete studio estimated weekend box office results.
