‘The Incredible Hulk’ continues its mild dominance over ‘The Happening.’ Still targeting a $55 million total gross for the weekend, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ made an estimated $18.4 mill this Saturday. With a $150 million budget, Marvel must be disappointed. Not publicly of course, the blockbuster is still beating their low expectations. But their cheaper ‘Iron Man’ made about twice as much during its opening weekend. These numbers definitely won’t up the Marvel Entertainment stock like ‘Iron Man’ did last month.

‘The Happening’ dropped to an estimated box office result of $10.3 mill Saturday, likely affected by the bad reviews. If the viewers are even more put off this Sunday, it won’t end the weekend far above $30 million. Although I expect most of the target audience not to even read the reviews.

‘Kung Fu Panda’ had a strong Saturday and surpassed M. Night Shyamalan’s awful thrillride. It ended the Saturday with an estimated $13.1 million in sold tickets. With the $10 mill yesterday, it will probably come in second for the weekend with about $35 million.

I’m expecting the studio weekend estimates in a couple of hours.

Yesterday we reported the mediocre early ‘The Incredible Hulk’ box office estimates, but it turns out these numbers were slightly on the low side. Louis Leterrier’s new Hulk grossed over $21 million yesterday, giving it a shot at a $55 million box office weekend. We know it’s no ‘Iron Man’ by now, but it will be a decent opening nonetheless. In line with the opening numbers by ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ last month. Notable is that ‘The Incredible Hulk’ won’t beat ‘The Hulk’ by Ang Lee in 2003, which made $62 million during its opening weekend.

Happening’s box office Friday was in line with what we reported yesterday. The awful thriller made $12.8 million, a little higher than the $12.5 mill we reported. It will definitely top Shyamalan’s last endeavor ‘Lady in the Water,’ which only made $18 million during its opening in 2006. ‘The Happening’ is still looking to surpass $30 million for the total weekend.

Last week’s movies are performing in line with our expectations from the weekly box office roundup. ‘Kung Fu Panda’ had another good Friday with a $10 million gross. While ‘You Don’t Mess with the Zohan’ went down to just $5.5 mill for the day.

The first Friday box office numbers are coming in and it seems like my ‘The Happening’ rant came just in time. A lot of people didn’t know the movie was God-awful and bought an estimated $12.5 million in tickets. This translates into a +$30 million weekend, slightly beating early tracking.

‘The Incredible Hulk’ is having a surprisingly mild opening. I can’t tell you how that one is, since I’m seeing it tonight. But as we questioned in our tracking post earlier this week, it doesn’t seem like people have forgotten about Ang Lee’s ‘The Hulk’ in 2003. The blockbuster had a weak $18.5 mill opening this Friday and will probably gross around $50 million this weekend. Half of Iron Man’s opening by Paramount last month — ‘The Incredible Hulk’ is being distributed by Universal.

I’ll post a small update with the final numbers if they deviate from these box office estimates.