BOX OFFICE RESULTS FOR THE WEEKEND OF JULY 24-26

This weekend at the box office, talking guinea pig spies stole the top spot from the
wizards of Hogwarts as G-Forcehad a strong debut at #1 knocking Mr. Potter and
friends to second place. Katherine Heigl’s latest romantic comedy, The Ugly
Truth, opened very well in third, while most people chose not to adopt new horror
film, Orphan, which opened mildly in fourth place.

Disney’s 3-D adventure film, G-Force, defied industry expectations and stole the
top spot from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The talking guinea pigs
had a spectacular debut, collecting $32.2M, very close to my $31M forecast.
Reviews weren’t very good but with Ice Age 3 beginning to thaw out and
Upfloating out of theatres, families decided to give the furry creatures a chance.
The Disney brand name and higher ticket prices for 3-D venues also helped the
cause. Look for G-Force to make it to about $90M by the end of its mission.

Opening strong in 3rd place, despite terrible reviews, was The Ugly Truth starring
Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butlerwith $27M, very close to my $28M prediction.
This is Heigl’s third time headlining a rom-com and she has now cemented herself
as one of Hollywood’s bankable leading ladies. Truth’s opening fell right in the
middle of her last 2 films, 2008’s 27 Dresses ($23M) and 2007’s Knocked
Up($30.7M). Romantic comedies have been playing well this summer as evidenced
by The Proposal’s towering $140.1M total and The Ugly Truthshould capitalize
on this trend. Look for the film to finish in the $100M range.

The latest horror film, Orphan, failed to excite viewers and opened to a not so great
$12.8M, right in line with my $12M call. The reviews have been fairly mixed for the
story of a family that adopts a nine year old little girl who turns out to be a
psychotic nut-bag. You can read my review here. Moving forward, Orphan will
quickly be abandoned by audiences and may find its way to about $30M.

Among holdovers, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Princefell to second place in
its second weekend, dropping 62% to conjure up another $30M in wizard gold at the
box office. This was a bigger fall than I expected (although not by much); I thought
it would perform exactly like the last film, The Order of the Phoenix, and drop
58%. Nonetheless, Half-Blood Princeshould reach $300M and becomes one of the
highest grossing films in the series. To see the gross of each of the prior Potter
films, click here. To see how the rest of my predictions fared, check out the chart
below.

Come back Thursday to check out my predictions for the dream team collaboration
of Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler in Funny People and yet another kid flick,
Aliens in the Attic.

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R TITLE JULY JULY % # OF # OF TOTAL BILL

ANK 24-26 17-19 CHAN THEAT WEE SAID
GE RES KS
1 G-Force $32.2M N/A N/A 3697 1 $32.2 $31M
M
2 Harry $30M $77.8M -62% 4325 2 $221. $32.7
Potter 8M M
and the -58%
Half-
Blood
Prince
3 The Ugly $27M N/A N/A 2882 1 $27M $28M
Truth
4 Orphan $12.8M N/A N/A 2750 1 $12.8 $12M
M
5 Ice Age: $8.2M $17.6M -53% 3300 4 $171. $9.1
Dawn of 3M M
the -48%
Dinosaurs
6 Transform $8M $13.7M -42% 3237 5 $379. $7.8
ers: 1M M
Revenge -43%
of the
Fallen
7 The $6.5M $8.2M -21% 2285 8 $247. $5.7
Hangover 1M M
-30%
8 The $6.4M $8.3M -23% 2779 6 $140. $5M
Proposal 1M -40%
9 Public $4.2M $7.7M -46% 2291 4 $88.1 $4.2
Enemies M M
-45%
10 Bruno $2.7M $8.3M -67% 1895 3 $56.5 $3.3
M M
-60%