He is the Lorax! He speaks for the trees… and for dozens of other corporate sponsors if the marketing for the new animated feature is to be believed.  All of that advertising helped the adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ classic The Lorax achieve the highest single-day debut of 2012 with an estimated $17.4 million from 3,729 locations.  That puts the family film on track for a weekend in the $60 million range.  Not only would that be significantly higher than initial tracking indicated, it would also help The Lorax beat the $56.4 million that Despicable Me, the first animated feature from Illumination Entertainment, earned for its own debut in July of 2010. Predictably, The Lorax sucked up most of the available resources at Friday’s box office, though there was enough green left over for Project X to claim a solid launch.  The R-rated Warner Brothers’ comedy earned an estimated $8.2 million on Friday, including $1.15 million from midnight screenings, and is projected to come close to $20 million through Sunday. We’ll have full details and analysis tomorrow.

Title

Friday

Total

1

The Lorax

$17,400,000

$17.4

2

Project X

$8,200,000

$8.2

3

Act of Valor

$3,800,000

$35.3

4

Safe House

$1,900,000

$102.8

5

Good Deeds

$1,900,000

$20.6