Daily Box Office for Friday, December 17, 2010

Daily Box Office for Friday, December 17, 2010

It's Tron in a runaway. It grossed $18 million on Friday. Yogi Bear took in $4.6 million. The Fighter limped into third with $3.9 mill. Yogi and the Fighter performed poorly, but they seemed like Avatar compared to How Do You Know, which could do no better than $2.5 million. Natalie Portman's Black Swan performance took in as much as How Do You Know, although it was in about 1/3 as many theaters! Black Swan finished second behind Tron in average revenues per theater.

In that block of five new movies, only Tron and Black Swan lived up to expectations, and the expectations for the other three were not that optimistic to begin with.

Meanwhile, Narnia and The Tourist each dropped nearly 60% from last Friday, which is dismal, considering that they didn't do very well in last week's debuts.

The weak links among those seven films will have to cede some theaters next week when three hopeful blockbusters open on Wednesday: Gulliver's Travels, Little Fockers, and True Grit. In addition to those films, which will each be in 3000+ theaters, Black Swan will expand and this year's critical darling, The King's Speech, will reach some 600 screens.