Rebooted Jason makes Crystal Lake a popular weekend destination: FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH set to win the President’s Day weekend box office battle!

Sometimes pre-release industry tracking points to a very clear box office winner, and that’s the case for the upcoming Valentine’s Day/President’s Day 4-day weekend. The reboot of Friday the Thirteenth (Warner Bros) appears to be headed for a resounding win with a possible $34.1M by Tuesday morning.

There is a fine distinction between a sequel, a remake and a reboot.  Let’s deal with pictures in the horror genre. The Saw 2 through Saw 5 are sequels. The narratives clearly build on each other. Gus Van Sant’s 1998 version of a Psycho ($10M opening – $21.5M cume) was a remake (virtually shot for shot). Then there’s Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween ($26.3M opening – $58.2M cume), which is a reboot. Zombie abandoned all of the previous narrative from the eight prior Michael Myers slasher pics, and started brand new.

(more…)