FREDDY'S A (ROTTEN) DREAM: 'Nightmare On Elm Street Opens To $15.8M Friday, $35M Weekend; 'Furry Vengeance' Bombs

Tough break for Summit (but they can't all be Twilights, especially this one it looked really bad).

SATURDAY AM: Warner Bros is already planning the 3D sequel. "The franchise is very much alive," an exec told me this morning. Because Friday's opening for New Line/Warner Bros' A Nightmare On Elm Street was $15.8 million from 3,332 theaters, including $1.6 million from Thursday midnight shows in about 1,000 locations, a new record for a horror flick previously held by the February 2009 rebooted Friday The 13th's $1 million. This means the Michael Bay-produced pic could make a non-record $35M for the weekend. (Remember that horror films normally drop between 30%/35% on Saturday from their Friday openings, and 45% less than Saturday for Sunday.) "A Nightmare On Elm Streetis a dream that won't stop," a rival studio exec emailed me. Puh-leeze, this pic received rotten reviews. In all, this is the 9th in the infamous franchise -- if you count number Freddy vs Jason -- with Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger. (Robert Englund as the slasher used to scare me so badly I could never even watch the trailers of the old films.)

By contrast, Furry Vengence turned in a nightmare performance as expected of a politically correct kiddie pic about the environment. Remember when Brendan Fraser had a film career? Opening in 2,997 theaters, the pic was co-produced and co-financed by Summit and Participant Media/Imagenation Abu Dhabi. But the studio claims the $35 million budget went lower after rebates, incentives, and strong pre-sales by Summit International. Even so, this did only $2 million Friday for a predicted $6M weekend.

Here's the Top 10:

1. Nightmare on Elm Street (NL/WB) NEW [3,332 Runs]
Friday $15M, Estimated Weekend $35M
2. How To Train Your Dragon (DWA/Par) Week 6 [3,426 Runs]
Friday $2.5M, Estimated Weekend $10M, Estimated Cume $191.6M
3. Date Night (Fox) Week 4 [3,093 Runs]
Friday $2.4M, Estimated Weekend $7.5M, Estimated Cume $73.5M
4. The Back-Up Plan (CBS Films/Sony) Week 2 [3,280 Runs]
Friday $2.4M (-43%), Estimated Weekend $7.0M, Estimated Cume $22.7M
5. The Losers (Dark Castle/WB) Week 2 [2,936 Runs]
Friday $1.9M (-41%), Estimated Weekend $5.5M, Estimated Cume $17.6M
6. Furry Vengeance (Summit) NEW [2,997 Runs]
Friday $1.7M, Estimated Weekend $6M

7. Clash Of The Titans (Warner Bros) Week 5 [2,736 Runs]
Friday $1.6M, Estimated Weekend $6M, Estimated Cume $154.4M
8. Kick-Ass (Lionsgate) Week 3 [2,452 Runs]
Friday $1.3M, Estimated Weekend $4M, Estimated Cume $42.0M
9. Death At A Funeral (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 3 [2,271 Runs]
Friday $1.2M, Estimated Weekend $4.0M, Estimated Cume $34.8M
10. Oceans (Disney Nature) Week 2 [1,210 Runs]
Friday $830K (-60%), Estimated Weekend $2.5M, Estimated Cume $13.4M

FRIDAY 2:15 PM: I was just told that the New Line/Warner Bros reimagining ofA Nightmare On Elm Street debuted to $1.6 million from Thursday midnight shows in about 1,000 theaters. That's way more than the previous record for a horror flick: the February 2009 rebooted Friday The 13th's $1 million. Today,Nightmare opens in 3,332 locations and my sources tell me right now the Friday domestic grosses look like a whopping $15M to $17M. So that's a $40+M opening weekend for sure.

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xoxo
Carrie