Action, Friday Box Office | featured news

Liam Neeson and ‘Taken 2” are looking at a $48 million weekend after blasting past their box office rivals Friday and rolling to a first-day total of $18.6 million. The gangbusters debut for Fox’s PG13-rated action sequel marks the second consecutive week a movie has broken out and lifted the box office into positive territory. If the weekend stays on pace, it will finish more than 30 percent ahead of last year, when “Real Steel” lead the way with a $27 million debut.

There were major glitches with Rentrak reporting numbers last night. But now Marvel/Disney's Thor distributed by Paramount is looking like $25.5 million for its Friday opening and $65+M for the weekend.

"Fast Five" has left the competition in the dust with an $83.6 million debut to grab the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office. Studio estimates released Sunday show Universal Pictures' fifth movie in "The Fast and the Furious" franchise was by far this year's biggest opening. Its debut was more than double the previous best of $39.2 million for "Rio."

A HUGE midnight Thursday and all-day Friday turnout puts “Fast Five” on track to better the last “Fast/Furious” picture’s opening weekend box office take. The last film did $71 million, and deadline.com tracks this one at $80 million. That puts Justin Lin, the director of the recent films in the franchise, in a position to do ...

"Resident Evil: Afterlife" showed there's still plenty of life in the franchise when it posted an estimated $10.9 million to open atop the Friday box office.

Marvel Studio's "Iron Man 2" soared to the top of the domestic rankings with an estimated $52.4 million in boxoffice from its first day in release on Friday.

If there isn't significant attendance loss, then Hollywood is now estimating this pre-Xmas 3-day weekend's opening grosses at $80M -- or $27M for Friday including the midnight shows, then $30M on Saturday, and $23M on Sunday when most colleges and high schools are out Monday.