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Box Office: 'Kick-Ass' heroically stakes its true claim to No. 1

By Gregory Ellwood, HitFix.com

www.hitfix.com

Story Created: Apr 20, 2010 at 9:00 AM EDT

Story Updated: Apr 20, 2010 at 9:00 AM EDT

For the second weekend in a row studio estimates have mistakenly called the No. 1 movie in America.  Based on initial projections, Paramount and Dream Works Animation thought "How To Train Your Dragon" would pull in $20 million for the three-day.  Instead, Exhibitor Relations has the actual figure at $19.6 million and a new U.S. cume of $158 million.  Considering that's down only 21% from the weekend before, no one is complaining, except for Lionsgate of course.

"Kick-Ass" actually overperformed it's $19.7 million Sunday estimate to pull in $19.8 million for its opening weekend.  That's not the $25-30 million the studio and industry thought it would pull in, but they'll take the No. 1 slot and hope good word of mouth fuels the buzzworthy flick.

But "Dragon" wasn't the only movie to over-estimate its box office. "Date Night" stayed in third with another $16.7 million (off the $17.3 million estimate) and a new cume of $48.6 million.  "Death at a Funeral" came in almost $800,000 lower than Sony's estimate generating $16.2 million vs. the $17 million originally provided. "Clash of the Titans" rounded out the top five with $15.3 million, slightly lower than the $15.7 million initial projection from Warner Bros.

If next weekend's estimates are off this much again, expect some sabre rattling from the MPAA to their constituents to stop the unnecessary inflated figures.

This weekends upcoming releases including "The Losers" and "The Back-Up Plan."
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