Walt Disney is going to be very happy this weekend as their unprecedented TV-to-theater movie franchise High School Musical 3 raked in $16.5 million in Friday box office tickets, all but guaranteeing a $50+ million weekend (so says Slash Film) for the harmless teen movie. UPDATE: Slash Film was a bit off… HSM3 made an estimated $42 million over the weekend.

Personally, I thought High School Musical 2 was one of the worst movies I have seen in a very long time; though I am outside of the target market, I just don’t get it. The music is bad, the choreography terrible and the story so sanitized that I don’t get how anybody outside of the most protective of families could enjoy it. Maybe they mixed things up for High School Musical 3, but I highly doubt it.

Anyway, congrats to Disney for turning the most-watched TV movie franchise into a lucrative box office behemoth.

The best thing about High School Musical 3’s box office success? Lionsgate can’t claim complete victory as Saw V opened in second place. The bad news? The movie still made $12.3 million on Friday, good for about $29 million (UPDATE: $30 million) over the weekend. We’re starting to see the gleam come off the Saw movies, but only just. As long as the Saw movies continue to make more in their opening weekend than their entire budget, Lionsgate will continue to produce this crap.

Pride and Glory, the new movie starring Ed Norton and Colin Farrell, opened to only $2.2 million on Friday, good for just over $6 for the box office weekend.

The Friday box office results for August 1, 2008 are in, and it’s going to be a close one for box office crown. We have two films vying for first place this weekend: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the unwanted sequel starring Brenden Fraser, and the very-much-wanted sequel and box office behemoth The Dark Knight.

The Mummy 3 won the Friday battle, raking in $15.5 million, but it may not win the war. The Dark Knight dropped 45% from last weekend - still pretty damn good for a blockbuster of its size - to add another $12.8 million to its cume. Nevertheless, those smart analysts over at  Box Office Prophets except, with some uncertainty, that the Batman movie may come out on top when final box office numbers are counted. For starters, The Mummy 3 may be a little bit frontloaded - whereas The Dark Knight has proven that people want to see it consistently any day of the week. At the very least, if it comes down to the wire, I could see Universal hedging the numbers a bit so that when the weekend box office estimates come out, The Mummy 3 is sitting on top.

Irregardless, this is a win for Universal. After the disaster that was The Mummy 2 (granted, it made a ton of money), Universal has to be pleased with a $40+ million opening weekend. While it didn’t look as bad as The Mummy Returns, the presence of yetis and poorly designed dragons - as well as God-awful reviews - had the average moviegoer thinking that this was a down-and-out release. I had pretty much forgotten that this was part of a very successful movie franchise, and that it’s still summer - a good amount of money can still be made.

As for The Dark Knight, the good news is that by the end of the weekend it will be closing in on $400 million, the fastest movie to do so. The bad news is that now, it is looking less and less likely that it will knock Titanic off its throne.

Kevin Costner’s Swing Vote, by the way, flopped with only $1.9 million on Friday, begging for a $5-6 million weekend. I feel bad for Costner, as I really want him to get a hit one of these days. That being said, it was clear from the beginning that Swing Vote was not going to be that comeback he so desperately needs.

The Friday box office estimates are in for the June 27-29 weekend, giving us a hint of what the final box office numbers will be. Many box office analysts expected both the family-friendly Wall-E and the R-rated action movie Wanted to do well, but the box office weekend is shaping up to a be a bigger one than first expected.

Wall-E, which was expected to be the big winner of the weekend, took in $23.3 million on Friday alone, shaping up for approximately $67 million over the three-day span. That’s just shy of Pixar’s record with The Incredibles, which took in a little over $70 million a few years ago. It’s also a lot higher than what the excellent Ratatouille opened to last year.

Wanted, which stars Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy, took in a whopping $18.7 million on Friday, which should lead to a much higher than expected $53 million weekend. Wanted will be the biggest June R-rated opening ever, knocking off Knocked Up’s $30.6 million.

Yesterday, box office predictions had Kung Fu Panda expected to make in the low-to-mid fifties and You Don’t Mess With the Zohan making around $32 million. Those weekend box office predictions were way off.

The Jack Black family film Kung Fu Panda, the first big animated movie of the year, earned $20.3 million on Friday according to Box Office Prophets, which means that the DreamWorks picture is expected to make approximately $65 million over the course of the weekend. Aside from the Shrek movies, this is DreamWork’s biggest animated opening ever.

As for Adam Sandler, who didn’t suffer either. Most analysts had his movie pegged at making $15-20 million less than the more family-friendly fare opening this weekend, and they were right. However, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, where Sandler plays a former Israeli counter terrorist who moves to New York to fulfill his dream of cutting hair only to be pursued by his former enemies, earned $15.2 million on Friday, which should lead to a $41 million opening. Those who were questioning whether Sandler’s time was fading after the disappointing Chuck and Larry were… wrong.

From the numbers I pulled yesterday, Entertainment Weekly was closest to estimating Panda’s numbers, as it had predicted $60 million in box office receipts. They were the second worst at predicting Zohan’s numbers, however. Box Office Report came closest to predicting Zohan’s numbers with a $38 million box office estimate.

Vindication is wonderful. Speed Racer, the awful-looking action-racing film from the Wachowski brothers, is the first flop of the summer season as it took in only $6.1 million according to Friday box office estimates. According to Box Office Prophets, the movie will take in approximately $20-$21 million over the weekend. No matter how you cut it, a movie that costs between $100-$120 million is expected to open to more than $20 million in its opening weekend, and I would expect a huge 60% drop next weekend. After all, with Chronicles of Narnia and Indiana Jones coming over the next 13 days, Speed Racer will have no place to breath.

This made my weekend.

Beyond Speed Racer, Iron Man will once again win the weekend with just under $40 million, though I’m surprised the hit action film didn’t do better in its second weekend. As good as it is, I was expecting some people to return to theaters this weekend - or for holdouts to be lured in by quality reviews - but $40 million, following a $100 million opening weekend, implies that isn’t the case. Still, no one’s complaining.

What Happens in Vegas earned $7.1 million on Friday, good for a $20 million opening. That’s pretty good for the Ashton Kutcher/Cameron Diaz comedy.

Iron Man, the Robert Downey, Jr.-starring action movie, made $32 million on Friday, May 2nd to conquer the weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. Since it’s 8pm opening on Thursday, the movie has made $38 million, meaning it that it is going to make a ton of money by the time Sunday closes.

Read my Iron Man movie review here.

Made of Honor, the only other major release this weekend, came in second, earning $5.4 million on Friday. I guess counter-programming paid off in this case.

The surprise of the weekend is that the Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro flopped in theaters this weekend. With a lack of competition, the basketball film still made it into the #1 spot, but will end up with $15-$20 million less than other comparable Will Ferrell movies.

Semi-Pro made only $5.4 million at the Friday box office, compared to the $12.3 million Blades of Glory earned last year. That means that, according to Box Office Prophets, Semi-Pro will end up with about $15 million for the weekend, compared to Blades of Glory’s $33 million. Ouch.

Honestly, I’m pretty surprised. Semi-Pro looked pretty funny, and had great previews to draw people in. Reviews were surprisingly decent, too; at least more than good enough for a Will Ferrell movie. The Superbowl ads alone were worth the price of admission, so I’m amazed this one didn’t appeal to people more. Is Ferrell’s star power fading? People might be getting tired of the same old formula over and over again, but, then again, I wouldn’t rule the ex-SNL star out yet. This may just be one of those weird flukes.

The Other Boleyn Girl, starring Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman as two scheming sisters trying to produce a male heir for King Henry VIII, will earn approximately $8.1 million this weekend, not bad considering that the movie is a period piece and only opened on 1,166 theater. Penelope, about a pig-faced Christina Ricci, earned $1 million on weekend, which means it’s pretty much dead on arrival. Considering I have yet to see a preview for the film, I’m not surprised.

No Country for Old Men also earned a million dollars as it pushed back up to 2,000 screens, riding it’s post Best Picture Oscar win. I would have contributed to that amount had I not received it on DVD last night.

The Friday box office results for the February 15-17 weekend (or for the February 14 to February 18 Valentine’s Day to President’s Day weekend) are here, and they imply a pretty impressive turnout for several new and returning films.

The Hayden Christensen-starring sci-fi thriller Jumper benefited from a lack of action films and a slick-looking premise to win Friday, after finishing in a “near dead heat” with Step Up 2 the Streets on Thursday. Jumper earned $8.2 million on Friday, bringing its two-day cume to $14.84.

Step Up 2 the Streets earned $6.25 million, The Spiderwick Chronicles $4.75 million and Definitely, Maybe only $2.9 million, for a disappointing fifth place finish. On the other hand, last week’s winner Fool’s Gold earned $3.9 million.

Here are the five day predications from Slashfilm:

1. Jumper (Fox) - $34.47M
2. Step Up 2 the Streets (Disney) - $28.45M
3. The Spiderwick Chronicles (Paramount) - $25.35M
4. Fool’s Gold (Warner Bros) -$18.75M
5. Definitely Maybe (Universal) - $14.4M
6. Welcome Back, Roscoe Jenkins (Universal) - $11.29M
7. Juno (Fox Searchlight) - $5.56M
8. The Bucket List (Warner Bros) - $4.99M
9. Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds (Disney) - $4.58M
10. 27 Dresses (Fox) - $4.19M

Wow. I didn’t see this one coming.

Proving once again that you can’t keep audience members with no taste down, Meet the Spartans stood up to an invading empire of other films and earned $6.5 million on Friday, January 25, 2008, to beat out both Rambo and Cloverfield. Steve Mason over at SlashFilm predicts the new Rambo movie - which features Sylvestor Stallone in his latest attempt to salvage a dying career - will end up winning the weekend… But, what the Hell?

Meet the Spartans looks God awful and likely is even worse, as it is just the latest in a series of terrible spoof movies such as Date Movie and Epic Movie. Are there people who actually like these films? The comedy is inane, and when you can’t even fill out a two-minute preview with funny moments, you know you’re in store for some pain. So how did Meet the Spartans manage to make $6.5 million on Friday? I have no clue.

Rambo, which received only a 34% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, opened on Friday to approximately $6 million. I thought for sure this one would win the weekend, with not much other competition out there other than Cloverfield. I guess violent action movies really are dead, which is a real shame.

The other real shocker is Cloverfield, however. Everyone knew the movie would fall hard, as last week’s numbers were inflated by a huge fanboy rush to see it opening weekend, but could anyone have predicted a 68% freefall? The J.J. Abrams monster movie earned only $4.5 million for the weekend.

The Diane Lane thriller Untraceable opened to $3.5 million on Friday and How She Move managed to open up outside the Top Ten with approximately $1 million.