Friday Report: 'Expendables 2' Leads, 'Bourne' Bleeds
Even with four new releases, it was a somewhat quiet day at the North American box office on Friday. The Expendables 2 easily took first place, though its tally was noticeably lower than the 2010 original. Meanwhile, The Bourne Legacy plummeted at the beginning of its second weekend, and openers ParaNorman and Sparkle were in a tight race for third.

The Expendables 2 grossed an estimated $10.5 million on Friday. That's off 21 percent from its predecessor, which earned $13.3 million on its opening day. Going by that movie's daily pattern, The Expendables 2 should be in line for around $27 million this weekend.

The Bourne Legacy fell 62 percent to an estimated $5.3 million. That's a steeper Friday-to-Friday decline than any of the previous Bourne movies (even 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum, which was coming off a huge opening weekend), and suggests that word-of-mouth isn't all that strong here. Through eight days, the reboot/spin-off has earned $57.9 million, and Universal is forecasting a weekend gross just under $17 million.

ParaNorman had a slight edge over Sparkle on Friday with an estimated $4.56 million, which is about on par with Coraline's $4.49 million opening day haul. That movie went on to earn $16.8 million in its first weekend, though Focus is currently projecting a more modest $13.4 million weekend for ParaNorman.

Not far behind, Sparkle debuted to $4.55 million from 2,244 locations. Sony is reporting that the movie earned a very strong "A" CinemaScore, and it appears on pace to at least come close to matching its budget ($14 million) over opening weekend.

The Campaign took a dive in its second outing, plummeting 59 percent to an estimated $4.2 million. Compared to other Will Ferrell Summer movies, though, that's not really a terrible drop: Anchorman fell 58.5 percent and Step Brothers and The Other Guys both dropped 57.2 percent. The political comedy, which co-stars Zach Galifianakis, has now earned $42.5 million.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green added $3.4 million on Friday for a three-day total of $7.68 million. With an anticipated family bump on Saturday and Sunday, the movie's five-day tally could get close to $15 million.

The Dark Knight Rises dropped 44 percent to an estimated $3.13 million yesterday. That was good enough to push the movie past the $400 million mark on its 29th day in theaters, which is the fourth-fastest pace ever to that point behind The Avengers (14 days), The Dark Knight (18 days) and Avatar (23 days).

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Grosses for Friday, August 17, 2012