“Despicable Me” crushed projections en route to a dominant Friday performance at the box office, effectively assuring itself a weekend victory.
The 3D animated film grossed $21.7 million Friday, which positions it for a weekend take of $55-60 million. Projections earlier in the week viewed $35-40 million as a strong start.
In its second Friday, “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” fell drastically to $10.9 million, although no one expected “Eclipse” to have legs. Its current take of more than $200 million is, nonetheless, still quite impressive.
The smartly-financed “Predators,” which came in with a production budget of less than $40 million according to Deadline, followed with $10.4 million Friday as part of a weekend total that should be about $25 million.
Also in the top five: “Toy Story 3” garnered 6.6 million, while “The Last Airbender” was good for $5.3 million.
I predict this would come out better than any are predicting. We don’t want to jinx it when you’re overly optimistic and the media need to lower our expectations so that you can suppress the vote.