WILL MOVIEGOERS GO APE OVER LATEST PLANET?

How much of a rise will 20th Century Fox’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes give the box office? Not an especially big one, according to box-office forecasters, who were notably way off in their calculations last week, when they predicted that Universal’s Cowboys & Aliens would do much more business than it did and that Sony/Columbia’s The Smurfs would do much less business than it did. They figure that this weekend, the Apes prequel will do around $30-35 million in business, while the latest gross-out comedy, Universal’s The Change-Up, will bag about $10-15 million. The big question is which movie will come in at No. 2? Cowboys & Aliens will be hoping for strong word-of-mouth to keep it from shedding a big share of its original take. On the other hand The Smurfs has been enjoying terrific midweek business, coming in well ahead of Cowboys every day of the week.

UPDATE:
Daily Variety reported on its website today (Saturday) that the Planet of the Apes prequel grossed $19.5 million on Friday and is expected to double that figure through Sunday.