This week the box office gave us Cowboys and Aliens: a huge action movie directed by Jon Favreau, written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman and produced by Steven Spielberg. It also gave us The Smurfs: a movie about tiny, animated blue creatures from the eighties which was supposed to play as family-friendly counter-programming to the would-be summer blockbuster. So what’s with that chart? Opening in 3,750 locations, Cowboys and Aliens was projected to take the weekend with $45-$50 million to The Smurfs $20 million from 3,395 dates. With Friday’s estimates, however, it now looks like Cowboys will be a first-place disappointment with $40 million while The Smurfs will overperform in second place with at least $30 million. Meanwhile, the third new release of the week, Crazy Stupid Love, opened in 3,020 locations, taking in an estimated $6.6 million for a weekend projection of $20 million. Full details and analysis tomorrow.
| Title | Friday | Total | |
| 1 | The Smurfs | $13,300,000 | $13.3 |
| 2 | Cowboys and Aliens | $12,990,000 | $12.9 |
| 3 | Captain America | $8,000,000 | $99.8 |
| 4 | Harry Potter 7b | $6,625,000 | $303.1 |
| 5 | Crazy Stupid Love | $6,600,000 | $6.6 |