'American Sniper' takes the Friday box office by storm

'American Sniper' takes the box office by storm

"The film’s first day in wide release has made it a bona fide hit, grossing $30 million on Friday. If American Sniper‘s momentum continues throughout the weekend, it’ll be well on its way to making $75-80 million over the holiday. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, that would make it the largest January opening of all time, easily beating the previous record holder, Kevin Hart’s Ride Along, which opened at $41.5 million a year ago."

Just about a day ago, I noted the vast discrepancy between The Weekend Warrior's prediction that Sniper would gross $21M, and Entertainment Weekly's guess of $50M. EW was headed in the right direction, but nobody thought it would be $75-$80M.