Friday Box Office, Daily Box Office | featured news

Defying all projections, Disney’s re-release of The Lion King roared its way to a first-day gross of $8.8 million at the domestic box office and is now on course to gross as much as $25 million for the weekend. Lion King easily claimed the top spot over three new films — Ryan Gosling starrer Drive, Sarah Jessica Parker comedy I Don’t Know How She Does It and Rod Lurie’s Straw Dogs remake.

In what’s shaping up to be possibly the slowest weekend of the year at the box office, the only bright spot was the new viral thriller Contagion, which topped the charts with an estimated $8 million on Friday. Warner Bros.’ PG-13 film, which was directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars a who’s who of Oscar winners and nominees, received mostly positive reviews and is on pace for a solid $22 million opening. But its success cannot distract from the box office’s overall dismal performance. The top 10 movies grossed an estimated $19.6 million on Friday — the lowest Friday figure so far this year.

Early Friday returns indicate that The Help will gross around $14 million for the four-day holiday weekend. By Monday, the female-fueled drama will have jumped $120 million mark--exceeding even the most optimistic expectations. DreamWorks and Participant Media produced and co-financed the $25 million movie.

On a scale of 10, Super 8 pretty much scored an eight by collecting $12.2 million on Friday, according to early estimates. (It also grossed $1 million on Thursday from Twitter-publicized screenings at 324 theaters.) The sci-fi adventure, directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg, was never expected to leave the train station with huge numbers, with industry insiders predicting a $30 million opening. But Super 8 is now on track for a debut of about $34 million. The PG-13 movie will likely fall a bit short of the opening gross of the 2008 Abrams-produced monster flick Cloverfield, which gobbled up $40.1 million its first weekend. But for a $50 million film starring a mostly no-name cast, this is still a solid start.

Twentieth Century Fox's prequel X-Men: First Class grossed $21 million in its Friday debut at the domestic box office, and is on track to meet expectations and earn $55 million for the weekend.

'Kung Fu Panda 2' nabs second spot -- The R-rated laffer appears to be on track to become 2011's first film, as well as the first R-rated film of all time, to break $100 million in its opening weekend.