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Opening day: ‘Final Destination’ scares up bigger Friday than ‘Halloween,’ ‘Basterds’

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What looked like a close weekend at the box office is shaping up to be an easy victory for ‘The Final Destination,’ as the fourth movie in Warner Bros.’ horror series easily beat the competition Friday.

Helped by the 53% of its theaters that played the movie in 3-D, with higher ticket prices, ‘The Final Destination’ sold a studio-estimated $10.9 million worth of tickets Friday. Based on the performance of previous ‘Destination’ pictures, the movie should earn close to $30 million this weekend, well ahead of expectations based on pre-release polling that had put it closer to $20 million.

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Weinstein Co.’s ‘Halloween II,’ meanwhile, earned a respectable $7.6 million on Friday. Because hard-core horror movies often do a disproportionate amount of business on their opening day, ‘Halloween II’ is probably headed for a weekend gross just under $20 million.

‘Inglourious Basterds’ fell 59% from its opening Friday a week ago to $5.9 million. If daily drops for the rest of the weekend are smaller, as is typical, it will probably decline about 50% for the weekend and be in tight competition with ‘Halloween II’ for the No. 2 spot at the box office.

-- Ben Fritz

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