“The Hangover 2″ brings in $30 million on Friday night

For the moment, The Hangover 2 seems to be even stronger than I anticipated, whileKung Fu Panda 2 may not be breaking out as large as I hoped. Anyway, The Hangover 2 scored another $30 million on Friday night, showing almost no decline from its $31 million opening day. In fact, when you factor in the $10 million in midnight screenings that made up 1/3 of the opening day, the Friday performance is even more impressive. Point being, there is a chance that The Hangover 2 will have consistent business all weekend long, as opposed to a heavily-front-loaded opening day. The two models that may apply are Sex and the City 2 and Terminator: Salvation. Last year’s TV sequel grossed $51 million in five days, earning $26 of that in the first two. Obviously that film was frontloaded in its first two days, and there is a risk thatHangover 2 may suffer the same fate if it gets harder to do the whole ‘guy’s night out’ thing over the family-friendly holiday (which is a problem that Sex and the City 2 faced last year, with ‘girls’ night out’ being hard to arrange while taking care of the kids and setting up the family events). Under that model, The Hangover 2 will gross $115 million by Monday night, which is still a solid take. Under the Terminator: Salvation model, the film will play all weekend long at a consistent pace, giving The Hangover 2 a stunning $141 million over five days. Obviously, Saturday numbers will tell the tale.

Photo Dreamworks Animation

Kung Fu Panda 2 pulled in $13.5 million on its first Friday. That’s 2.3x its Thursday number, showing that audiences were indeed waiting for the weekend. It still makes me question why Dreamworks wasted a Thursday opening day on this one, as a one-day opening of $19 million is far more impressive than a two-day opening of $19 million. Anyway, it would look like the picture is going to end up with a $75 million five-day total, which is impressive but frankly lower than I would have pegged it, considering the popularity of the original and the strong reviews for this entry. Still, that would still give the picture a 12x weekend multiplier.

The other big news was the expected, but still impressive showing for Terence Malick’s rollicking action comedy, The Tree of Life. The Brad Pitt adventure grossed $115,000 on in just four theaters (pretty much all of those theaters had it on three screens or more), setting the film up for a $500,000 four-day weekend and a massive $130,000 per-screen average. Oh, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides grossed just $10.8 million on its second Friday, or a 69% drop from last Friday. Good. And Bridesmaids grossed $4.4 million, a mere 29% drop from last Friday even against The Hangover 2. Also good. As always, we’ll know more tomorrow, but it’s looking like a BIG Memorial Day weekend at the box office.