Friday Box Office – JACKASS 3D Has Giant $21.7 Million Debut; RED in Second with $7.1 Million

Who knew? Ten years after a group of bleary-eyed dreamers with nothing but a shopping cart, a staple gun and a complete lack of social boundaries found their way to MTV on the series Jackass, it looks like the market for watching men perform their own vasectomies has only grown. And I mean seriously grown. The third installment in the Jackass cinematic dynasty, Jackass 3D, has debuted with a staggering $21.7 million from 3,081 locations. Not only does that give Jackass 3D the biggest debut of the entire franchise it also makes it, by far, the biggest debut of the fall – outstripping the 3D Resident Evil: Afterlife by more than $10 million. In fact, you would have to look all the way back to Inception last July to find a film that matches Jackass 3D’s opening day. At this point it looks like Jackass 3D could realize as much as $40 million through Sunday. I repeat: who knew?  Summit’s DC comic adaptation Red came in second with $7.1 million from 3,255 locations. That is just over the debut of Wall Street 2 which means that, finally, fall 2010 may have a weekend that doesn’t fall short by 2009 standards.  We’ll update you tomorrow.