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.

I know you’re not visiting to read a review, but I just have to vent (rant) about that new M. Night Shyamalan movie. Now let me first say I’ve never really been disappointed by one of his movies. Ok, by ‘Signs’ maybe, but I enjoyed most of his other works. I even somewhat liked ‘Lady in the Water,’ although I agree if you’d say it was all downhill from ‘The Sixth Sense.’

His latest thrillride however, is just awful. I mean aaaaawful. Skip it unless you’re looking for a movie to make you laugh. What’s the problem? The script. Some might say it’s the poor acting. But if the lines are this bad, how can you satisfy as an actor? Mark Wahlberg starts of weak. As suspected by the trailer, the ‘bad boy’ can’t convince as a teacher — at all. But he grows in his role after leaving the school. Zooey Deschanel isn’t bad either. Although she does play her role on the weird side, which was about the only interesting part of the movie.

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