Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily has early estimates for yesterday's Christmas Day box office and it looks like there's a neck and neck battle between Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, which is reporting an estimated $25 million for its opening day, and James Cameron's Avatar which takes slightly less with $24 million on its second Friday. Based on those numbers and the normal Christmas weekend bump (with many people being off school and work on Monday), we might see the first weekend ever where two movies gross over $70 million. (The closest time in recent memory was when The Day After Tomorrow opened over Memorial Day against the second weekend of Shrek 2, but the former ended up with less than $70 million over the three-day weekend.) We'll give a slight advantage to Avatar to win the weekend, because it is a returning movie and will slightly less frontloaded to Friday than the new movie.
Who do you think will come out the winner?
ROCK ON!!! and MABUHAY!!!