This weekend comes the unfortunate booking of two comedies. The first comedy, Tower Heist, is a riff on the Bernie Madoff situation starring an impressive ensemble (on paper) of Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Michael Pena, and Alan Alda. Then you have the raunchy Christmastime pre-Thanksgiving release of A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. With tons of marketing thrown toward Universal’s Tower Heist it looked to be the clear favorite to finish first this weekend.
Friday numbers have Brett Ratner’s comedy at $9.5 million, which is $2 million dollars more than its closest competitor, Puss In Boots. The Shrek spin-off with the animated talking cat (voiced by Antonio Banderas) had a mediocre debut of $34 million last weekend. Most attribute that figure to the snowstorms that battered the East coast. However, this weekend is a different story. With the coast thawed Puss In Boots could finish the weekend with $27 million, a figure that is near Tower Heist‘s estimated $28 million total.
As for A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Friday estimates have it holding at $5.5 million with weekend estimates at $16 million. To look at the positives, $16 million would make it the best opening in the franchise. It also has a current score of 71% on Rotten Tomatoes, so that means 7 out of 10 critics liked it to some degree. Still, 3D costs money, and for this comedy, what should have been $20 million in 2D probably ballooned to $30 million or more.
Look for our complete box office report on Monday.
