Box Office: Vantage Point Surprises w/$7.5M Friday, headed for $22.4M

Critics have been generally unkind to Vantage Point, the Pete Travis-directed film, with many, describing it as an Akira Kurosawa Rashomon ripoff, but that hasn’t kept moviegoers away. With an all-star cast, including Oscar winners William Hurt and Forest Whitaker, Matthew Fox from TV’s Lost, and former Academy Award nominees Dennis Quaid and Sigourney Weaver, this assassination thriller has exceeded industry expectations with a powerful $7.5M opening day, and it is headed for an estimated $22.4M opening weekend.

Vantage Point has overcome soft industry tracking (I forecasted just $16M in my Weekend Tracking column) and taken advantage of a weekend with no serious competition to absolutely swamp the field. In fact, the 2nd place movie during Oscar weekend will likely be holdover The Spiderwick Chronicles (Paramount) with an estimated $13M. That’s almost a full $10M behind the weekend’s #1 movie.

Fox’s Jumper added $3.9M on Friday compared to Spiderwick’s $3.1M, but the Doug Liman sci-fi action flick will finish 3rd for the 3-day with $12.2M or so. That’s off 55% from opening weekend, but the Hayden Christensen vehicle will wrap up the weekend with $55.7M.

Step Up 2 the Streets (Disney) danced to another $2.9M on Friday, and it will finish the weekend at #4 with $8.2M. Fool’s Gold (Warner Bros) delivered another $2.1M to kick off the frame, and it will stay in the Top 5 with a probable $6.4M and a new cume of $52.5M.

Beyond Vantage Point, the most successful new wide release is Be Kind, Rewind (New Line), the latest cinematic adventure from Academy Award winner Michel Gondry. The Jack Black-Mos Def surrealist comedy scored a nifty $1,485 Friday PTA for a $1.2M opening day. I’m projecting $3.65M for the 3-day or a $4,517 PTA.

As expected, Witless Protection (Lionsgate) and Charlie Bartlett (MGM) are both unmitigated disasters. Witless managed $700,000 on Friday, and it’ll finish the weekend with a meager $2M. The well-reviewed Charlie deserves better, but could only muster $600,000 on opening day, and it’ll crawl to just $1.8M for the frame.

U2-3D (National Geographic) has expanded to 686 locations with some success. The 3D concert film racked up $800,000 in Friday ticket sales, and this spectacular movie-going experience will finish the weekend in the Top 10 with an estimated $3.36M. Originally, I felt a $10,000-$12,000 PTA was possible, but, as it turns out, U2-3D is sharing many of those screens with Disney’s Hannah Montana. That will keep the Per Theatre in the $4,000-$5,000 range.