Friday Box Office: '22 Jump Street' - $25M, 'How To Train Your Dragon 2' - $18.5M

It was a classic "everybody wins" Friday at the box office last night, as both anticipated sequels opened strong. Sony's  22 Jump Street earned a whopping $25 million yesterday, as the Jonah Hill/Channing Tatum buddy comedy earned the third-biggest Friday for a comedy on record, ahead of the $23.1m of Rush Hour 2 and behind the $27m Friday of Sex and the City and the $29m Friday (coming off a $31m Thursday) of The Hangover part II. Speaking of Rush Hour 2, that's the comparison for this one. 21 Jump Street opened with $36m and ended it run with $138m domestic and $201m worldwide. The Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker action comedy opened with $33m back in September 1998 and ended its run with $141m domestic and $244m worldwide. Cue three years later, and Rush Hour 2 basically doubles its predecessor's opening weekend with $66m in early August.

Now movie going is a lot more front-loaded than it was in 2001, so we shouldn't necessarily expect 22 Jump Street to approach $66m by tomorrow. A 2.5x-2.6x weekend multiplier, similar to Neighbors ($19.5m/$49m) and Ted ($20m/$54m) should get 22 Jump Street to $62.5m-$65m for the frame. Budgeted at $50 million, this is an unquestionable victory for Sony. If the film clears $60m for the weekend, Chris Miller and Phil Lord become the first director(s) to have two $60m debut weekends in a single year following the $69m debut of The LEGO Movie back in February.  This will also give supporting player Ice Cube his second $40m+ debut of the year, following the $41.5m debut of Ride Along back in January.

The film opened in the UK already, earning $8.2m just before the start of the World Cup. The irony of course is that Sony has been on the defense all summer regarding The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (which just crossed $700m worldwide), yet it's about to have back-to-back winners between 22 Jump Street and next week's Think Like A Man Too. The only question now is whether 22 Jump Street ends up over $60m by tomorrow and whether or not it can actually maintain something resembling legs in this front loading box office environment. But of course when you score a $60m weekend for a film budgeted at $50m, legs really aren't much of a concern.

The next release is a little more complicated. DreamWorks Animation's  How to Train Your Dragon 2 earned a solid $18.5 million last night, setting the stage for a $55-$57m debut weekend. Now offhand, that's 54% higher than the $12m Friday for How To Train Your Dragon back in March 2010. And it will be well-above the $43m opening weekend of same. The question was just how much higher the sequel to the beloved original was supposed to climb compared to its predecessor. But it's also below the $60m+ openings for Madagascar 2, Madagascar 3, and Kung Fu Panda, along with the $59m debut of Monsters Versus Aliens back in 2009. And its Friday is below the $20m days for Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar. 

By most reasonable expectations, this would be an unqualified win. And one hopes that the superb adventure picture will have strong legs for the next month, as it's the only major kid-friendly option between now and Planes: Fire and Rescue on July 18th. The picture opens in 20 major foreign territories this weekend as well, so it will surely clean up overseas. But this felt like the kind of breakout sequel that capitalizes on the long-term popularity of the original, more akin to Despicable Me 2 than Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 or Rio 2. To be fair, it had a larger Friday-to-Friday bump between installments than Rio 2 or Cloudy 2.

Still, considering the handful of sequels that opened with less than their predecessors (Kung Fu Panda 2, Cars 2), I probably shouldn't be too much of a "Debbie Downer." It will surely at least equal the $217 million gross of the original film domestically, with a probable big increase overseas. Considering how good the first film was and how superb this entry was, I was frankly expecting a bigger opening weekend. But that's probably my problem more than the film's. Point being, it's awesome. Go see it.   

The rest is holdover news. Edge of Tomorrow dropped an unfortunate 57% from Friday-to-Friday, earning $4.56 million, bringing its cume to $40m domestic. There was hope that the Warner Bros. release would exhibit something resembling legs due to its strong word-of-mouth and sheer quality, but with a new big movie dropping every weekend, legs are scarcer and scarcer these days. Speaking of poor legs, Godzilla earned another $0.87m for a new cume of $189m. As such, it looks like Godzilla will be the first $90m+ debut to not reach $200m domestic. The good news is that it has earned $25m on its first two days in China. With $426m worldwide as of today, it still has China and Japan (June 27th) left to play in. It's a hit, but it's a quick-kill blockbuster. The Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore comedy Blended earned another $0.54m (-58%) for a new cume of $39.1m.

20th Century Fox (which also distributed How to Train Your Dragon 2) had a somewhat expected fall with The Fault in Our Stars. The acclaimed Shailene Woodley cancer drama earned $6.35 million, down a whopping 75% from last Friday's $24m opening day. Its domestic total is now $72.33m. The bad news is that the film was heavily frontloaded, but the good news is that the film has still already made 6x its $12m budget. Expect a $19m weekend for a $84m cume. It'll get to $100m, but not much farther than that. X-Men: Days of Future Past earned $2.63m yesterday for a new domestic cume of $199m. So yes, it will pass $200m today with hopes of hitting around $675m worldwide by weekend's end. Walt Disney's Maleficent earned another $5.84m, giving the Angelina Jolie vehicle $150m domestic.

That's it for today. Come back tomorrow for the weekend estimates and more holdover news.