Mike Myers is a big name in Hollywood. But just how big? The first ‘Austin Powers’ in 1997 opened with $9.5 mill, the last in 2002 with $73 mill. But can he carry a new movie (character) into the twenties? The Friday box office numbers for the $62 million ‘The Love Guru’ don’t say so. It made an even lower than expected $5 million this Friday.

Steve Carell is a totally different story. He began to make a name for himself just a couple of years ago. He starred in some hits (‘Little Miss Sunshine’) and some mild flops (‘Evan Almighty’). But most of his movies didn’t flop as hard as ‘The Cat in the Hat,’ by his weekend competitor Myers. The first numbers for the $80 million TV adaptation are good though. Carell opened with about $14.5 million in ticket sales this Friday.

The last numbers indicate a good weekend for Carell and a low point for Myers. The final estimates for the weekend box office are a meager $14 million total for ‘The Love Guru’ and a decent $40 million for ‘Get Smart.’ Based on its budget + marketing, this isn’t looking good for Paramount (‘The Love Guru’). Time for another ‘Austin Powers,’ maybe?

We should’ve seen this one coming. ‘Bollywood coming to Hollywood‘ + ‘Spielberg wants to reinvent DreamWorks‘  = this post? Apparently DreamWorks’ Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg are in talks with the Indian Reliance Group to invest in their studio.

The big three have been discontent with the Paramount deal for a long time and have been talking to several competing parties. Now it seems like Spielberg and co. will get $500-$600 million from Reliance to become independent yet again.

DreamWorks’ parting from Paramount is pretty much confirmed by now and both don’t seem to mind (at all). But will they really end up in Indian arms? And start the injection of Indian movie capital into Hollywood while the US studios are keeping the money in their pockets?

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.