“District 9” Dominates Box Office, “The Goods,” “Bandslam” Bomb

Note: This data on “District 9,” “The Goods,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife” and “Bandslam” regards Friday’s box office. For the full weekend report, click here.

Sci-fi thriller “District 9” dominated the Friday box office, as neither the other new releases nor the second week of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” proved to be threatening.

The film grossed $14.2 million Friday, which gives it the second-highest R-rated opening day for a film in August history (“American Pie 2” holds the record at $16.5 million). The opening day gross is so significant that even if the film faces the Saturday and Sunday drop-off that is not uncommon for films in the genre, it should have absolutely no difficulty beating its mid-$20 millions projection.

New release “The Time Traveler’s Wife” faced poor reviews, but it managed to gross a healthy $7.7 million Friday, proving that while August 2009 has so far belonged to guy flicks like “G.I. Joe” and “District 9,” there is still an opportunity to cash in with female-skewing films.

Showing the limited shelf life anticipated by Headline Planet in last week’s box office write-up, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” took a steep drop Friday, falling 68% to $7 million. Saturday and Sunday should not fare much better for the film, and a sub-$20 million weekend is very possible.

“Julie & Julia,” which scored well with the female demographic last week, dropped to $3.6 million Friday. That kept the film in fourth for the day, ahead of “G-Force,” which added $2.1 million to its take.

Despite the successful debuts for “District 9” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” not all new releases proved fruitful. Comedy “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard” bombed, earning a mere $2 million at the box office. Consistent with the very pessimistic $5-7 million weekend projections, the number proves that the aggressive promotional campaign, which included a trip from the film’s stars Jeremy Piven and Ken Jeong to WWE RAW, did nothing to combat the poor reviews and general lack of interest. A $2 million opening figure is attainable for bare bones, male-skewing comedies; between the aggressive marketing campaign and the casting of Jeremy Piven, Ed Helms and a slew of recognizable comedy faces, the opening figure is simply terrible.

But it was not the most disappointing opening of the day. “Bandslam,” which was banking more on the inclusion of a new “New Moon” trailer than the actual film content, pulled just $880,000 from moviegoers Friday.

On the limited front, “Ponyo” earned $1.2 million at 927 screens, while “Spread” grabbed $38,000 from 91 theatres.