Friday Box Office: “Prometheus,” “Madagascar” neck and neck

Just as I predicted in this week’s Box Office Beat, Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus” and DreamWorks Animation’s “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” both opened well yesterday, separated by a margin of less than a million dollars. “Prometheus” took the day, but it’s clear now that “Madagascar” should take the weekend, being that kid-oriented films perform best on Saturday and Sunday. Everything else was a footnote, including last week’s winner “Snow White and the Huntsman,” which suffered a predictably huge drop of 63 percent.

In limited release, Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” continued to perform well, clinching a Friday of $455,000 in its roll-out to 96 theaters. That should be good for a weekend in the realm of $1.5 million — which is not as fantastic per-screen as it has been doing at lower theater counts, but still suggests there is quite a bit of interest in its new markets. Among new platformers, FilmDistrict’s time travel charmer Safety Not Guaranteed was the winner, with $27,000 from nine theaters, for what should be a $75,000 opening weekend.

Here is the top 10 chart…

No.	Title	Friday Gross	CriticSpeak Weekend Projection	# of Theaters
1	“Prometheus”	$21.4M	$53.5M	3,396
2	“Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted”	$20.5M	$67.0M	4,258
3	“Snow White and the Huntsman”	$7.5M	$21.8M	3,777
4	“Men in Black 3”	$4.2M	$14.7M	3,792
5	“Marvel’s The Avengers”	$3.3M	$11.4M	3,129
6	“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”	$0.9M	$3.2M	1,298
7	“What to Expect When You’re Expecting”	$0.9M	$2.7M	2,087
8	“The Dictator”	$0.7M	$2.1M	1,651
9	“Battleship”	$0.7M	$2.0M	1,954
10	“Moonrise Kingdom”	$0.5M	$1.5M	96

Source: Box Office Mojo