Will Thanksgiving Box Office Be Best Ever? 'Rise Of The Guardians' Underperforms But 'Life Of Pi' Overperforms; 'Red Dawn' Pars; Still 'Breaking Dawn 2' Stays #1 & 'Skyfall' #2

THURSDAY 7:45 AM UPDATE: Rushing to leave work, rushing to commute home, rushing to shop the Thanksgiving meal' There's little time on the Wednesday before T-Day to rush out to the new movies. But that should pick up by Friday. So Hollywood is hoping for biggest-ever total moviegoing of $275M for the 5-day holiday, which would smash 2009's record of $258.6M. 'This weekend has a chance to break the record,' one opimistic studio exec emails me. 'Certainly off to a great start.' Well, for many movies ' but not all of them. Because it's still early, I'll wait to write a full analysis until Friday night.

But right now domestic box office looks as if DreamWorks Animation's Rise Of The Guardians 3D distributed by Paramount is underperforming. (By contrast How To Train Your Dragon posted one of the slowest openings in DWA history and still eked out $43.7M. These days successful toons open to at least $40+M.) Let's see if it can build momentum this weekend after receiving a coveted 'A' CinemaScore from audiences. That should help word of mouth.

Fox's Life Of Pi 3D received an 'A-' CinemaScore which should help keep it overperforming even though it opened in only 6th place. (The studio told me it would rejoice if director Ang Lee's Oscar-buzzed pet project opened over $20M and it did. But the film was a costly $120M because of all that CGI.) exit polling shows the film played very well to a broad cross-section of moviegoers: 54% male and 46% female, 23% under age 18 and 38% under 25. Subject matter was far and away the primary driver for interest. I give the studio high marks for a compelling marketing campaign on a hard-to-describe storyline.

And Film District's Red Dawn is performing on target with tracking after receiving its 'B' CinemaScore. (It's a minor miracle that this remake is finally releasing since it was trapped so long in MGM's bankruptcy. Chris Hemsworth when cast was still an unknown but now is a huge action star: pic should benefit from his career trajectory.)

Among holdovers, this will be another great weekend for Summit's Twilight Saga finale Breaking Dawn Part 2 as well as Eon Productions/MGM/Sony Pictures' James Bond #23 Skyfall. And Steven Spielberg's Lincoln from DreamWorks/Fox/Disney continues to find an audience ' amazingly ' in both red and blue states. The Weinstein Co's Oscar-buzzed Silver Linings Playbook is still on a slow rollout. Its per screen average needs to strengthen: clearly the R rating puts off Jennifer Lawrence's younger female fans who are still Twilight Saga obsessed. And Bradley Cooper is by no means a box office sure thing.

Here are Top 10 estimates for Wednesday, the 3-day weekend, and the 5-day holiday. I'll update AM and PM along with the full analysis. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and check back for refined numbers.

1. Breaking Dawn Part 2 (Summit/Lionsgate) Week 1 [Runs 4,070] PG13
Wednesday $13.3M
3-day Weekend $45.2M, 5-day Holiday $67.3M, Cume $230.2M

2. Skyfall (Eon/MGM/Sony) Week 2 [Runs 3,526] PG13
Wednesday $7.4M
3-Day Weekend $34.1M, 5-Day Holiday $49.7M, Cume $220.3M

3. Rise Of The Guardians 3D (DWA Animation/Par) NEW [Runs 3,653] PG
Wednesday $4.8M
3-day Weekend $22.4M, 5-Day Holiday $31.4M

4. Lincoln (DreamWorks/Fox/Disney) Week 2 [Runs 2,018] PG13
Wednesday $4.2M
3-Day Weekend $23.2M, 5-Day Holiday $32.1M, Cume $60.1M

5. Red Dawn (Film District) NEW [Runs 2,679] PG13
Wednesday $4.1M
3-Day Weekend $15.4M, 5-Day Holiday $24.6M

6. Wreck-It Ralph 3D (Disney) Week 3 [Runs 3,259] PG
Wednesday $3.7M
3-Day Weekend $17.4M, 5-Day Holiday $24.2M, Cume $150.7M

7. Life Of Pi 3D (Fox) NEW [Runs 2,902] PG
Wednesday $3.6M
3-Day Weekend $20.2M, 5-Day Weekend $28.3M

8. Flight (Paramount) Week 3 [Runs 2,638] R
Wednesday $1.2M
3-Day Weekend $6.7M, 5-Day Holiday $9.3M, Cume $72.9M

9. Silver Linings Playbook (Weinstein) NEW [Runs 367] R
Wednesday $656K
3-Day Weekend $3.7M, 5-Day Holiday $5.1M, Cume $5.7M

10. Argo (Warner Bros) Week 6 [Runs 1,255] R
Wednesday $568K,
3-Day Weekend $3.1M, 5-day Holiday $4.3M, Cume $97.3M

For more estimates listed by title, see box office results here...

Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.

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