1. "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" ($22 million)
2. "Julie & Julia" ($7.5 million)
3. "G-Force" ($2.8 million)
4. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" ($2.4 million)
5. "Funny People" ($2.4 million)
With blue and red lasers a-blazing, "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" stormed the box office on Friday to a $22 million dollar opening, on track to earn a respectable $55 million this weekend. The success might surprise the readers following our Box Office Poll -- after questionable trailers, some potentially damaging rumors about the director and other signs of failure, many of you expected "Rise of Cobra" to sink. Now we know -- remember kids: knowing is half the battle -- and it's not just ticket sales that the real American heroes are making bank on.
"This property will sell hundreds of millions of dollars of Hasbro toys that we get a royalty in," an unnamed Paramount Pictures executive reminds Deadline Hollywood Daily. "And given the action, this will be a huge seller on DVD."
Even though the gun-toting soldiers commandeered the top spot, there was another film with a winning recipe this week: the Meryl Streep-led "Julie & Julia" debuted to a $7.5 million dollar opening.
According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, the film's Friday success is reflective of "massive free media coverage because of its subject matter -- American cooking icon Julia Child. The result was that Nora Ephron's foodie pic will make back half of its budget with its projected opening weekend." Not a bad start for a movie that cost only $40 million to make.
The rest of Friday's box office battlers performed between the $2 - 3 million mark. "G-Force" took the bronze hamster wheel with $2.8 million, while the spells and jokes of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "Funny People" failed to rake in more than $2.4 million.
Which movie is getting your ticket price this weekend? Will you rise with "Cobra" or cook with "Julia"? Tell us your plans in the comments section or on Twitter!
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