Friday Box Office – THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG Conjures Up $7 Million

After months of hype and controversy, Disney Animation introduced America to its newest princess on Friday with The Princess and the Frog. Personally, I never thought that casting the first amphibian in an animated Disney feature was particularly noteworthy – but perhaps I’m missing the broader strokes of the story. In her first day on 3,434 screens, the lovely green-hued Princess Tiana brought in an estimated $7 million to knock The Blind Side out of first place. That figure was only a bit under the debut of Mulan, Disney’s last fairy-tale princess, which went on to make $22.7 million in its debut weekend back in 1998. Weekend matinees should help The Princess and the Frog to top that figure.  If not, get ready to read a lot of angry pro-frog blog posts on Monday morning. In less contentious news, Clint Eastwood’s Invictus got off to a decent start with $2.9 million from 2,125 theatres. Nothing controversial about a movie set in apartheid-era South Africa, after all.