It would seem there is a controversy over who has won the coveted first place in this weekend’s box office race.
Two of the big trades such as Variety and Box Office Mojo are projecting Samuel L. Jackson’s “Snakes On a Plane” as the weekend champ with a take of a little over $15 million to its credit. However, Sony Pictures, the good folks behind the production of Will Ferrell’s Nascar spoof, “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” are making the claim that their pic should be number one because it brought in a little over $14 million this weekend.
Now, for all those math majors out there it would seem that “Snakes” won the prize fair and square, but, those SOAP figures include the $1.4 million that it made on its Thursday night opening and Sony is crying foul.
New Line Cinema, the studio behind SOAP is claiming that the stats should stay as estimated since it has been a long custom of Hollywood to include the Thursday box office figures in the weekend tally whenever a movie opens on that day.
Some in the industry are saying that since the 4-day total of $15.4 million was somewhat less than what they were predicting for the Jackson film and that it would appear that the one day extra release date and all the early hype for SOAP didn’t end up translating into ticket-buying anyway….why would Sony bother to make a fuss since Ferrell’s film has already proven itself to be a winner at the box office?
We will have the full B.O. Top Ten Weekend stats for you in a day or two, and it will be interesting to see if the actual final ticket tally ends up close to the projected estimates and SOAP can become the undisputed box office winner.
Oh, and just as an aside…..that little Johnny Depp movie about those pirates and that dead man’s chest will likely be passing up that $1 billion dollar mark by the end of this week after only seven weeks in theaters worldwide. Not bad Jack Sparrow, not bad at all.
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