Paramount PicturesUPDATE: Paramount was reporting Saturday that Star Trek will end the box-office weekend with $72 million, an estimate that includes the film's Thursday night screenings, Exhibitor Relations said. Trek's three-day, Friday-Sunday gross won't be known until tomorrow, but, as of now, the film looked to be hitting projections.
As reported earlier, the revamped Star Trek grossed an estimated $7 million from Thursday night screenings.
But hold on to your pointy ears.
"Just about everybody who's seen it thinks it's going to make $100 million [this weekend]," Exhibitor Relations' Jeff Bock said today. "And just about everybody who [doesn't have much] interest in it thinks it's going to do $60 million."
According to Bock, the film's Thursday take puts the sci-fi action movie on course for the more widely expected $60 million to $70 million weekend debut. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Or its Thursday performance, which was twice as big as the $3.5 million Iron Man took in from its opening-night Thursday shows last May.
Said Bock: "It's definitely a solid number…And it still leaves the weekend pretty wide open."
(Originally published May 8, 2009, at 12:15 p.m. PT)