Box Office Report: Early Friday Returns Show 'Pacific Rim,' 'Grown Ups 2' in Tight Race

There's a fierce race going on at the North American box office as Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim and Adam Sandler comedy Grown Ups 2 jockey for position.

Universal's Despicable Me 2, however, could beat both and stay at No. 1 in its second weekend with a gross as high as $48 million.

PHOTOS: 'Pacific Rim' Premiere: Big Robots Bring Out the Big Stars

Defying soft prerelease tracking, Pacific Rim is certainly doing better than expected, but the film could see a precipitous drop-off on Saturday once fanboy traffic slows. It took in $3.6 million in Thursday night shows, with 23 percent coming from fanboy-friendly Imax theaters.

Some believe the 3D sci-fi epic, from Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros., could gross in the mid-$40 million range for the weekend, though most box-office experts believe it will top out at between $35 million and $40 million, a so-so number considering the tentpole's $190 million-plus budget.

Sony's Grown Ups 2 is tipped to debut in the $40 million range and earned a surprisingly strong $2.3 in Thursday night runs. The sequel, costing $80 million to produce, opens three years after the original film turned into a box-office hit, bowing to $40.5 million and ultimately grossing $271.4 million worldwide.

The ensemble comedy, receiving blistering reviews, reteams Sandler with Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph and Maria Bello.

Prerelease tracking for Pacific Rim was notably soft, but Warners and Legendary say stellar reviews and word of mouth are fueling a better-than-expected performance. Legendary took the lead on the movie, including paying for most of the budget.

STORY: 'Pacific Rim' Director Guillermo del Toro: 'Post-Conversion 3D Can Be Great'

Pacific Rim, pitting giant robots against alien monsters, stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi and Charlie Day.

Overseas, Pacific Rim is off to a strong start in Asia, Russia and Argentina, though it fared dismally in Australia on Thursday, coming in No. 4 behind the the opening day of The Heat, Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University (the two animated films are benefiting from school holidays).

Pacific Rim grossed $7.8 million from 25 markets on Thursday, led by Russia with $2 million. It also prospered across Asia, taking in $1.5 million in South Korea, marking Warners' third-largest opening day of all time in that market.

VIDEO: 'Pacific Rim's' Charlie Hunnam Says Filming Was Like Running on Worst Elliptical Ever

So far internationally, the epic is outpacing a slew of films that went on to gross between $300 million and $400 million overseas, including Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Clash of the Titans and Prometheus. It's also pacing on par with World War Z, which has earned more than $200 million to date at the foreign box office.

Pacific Rim opens just as Thomas Tull's Legendary and Warners prepare to part ways. This week, Legendary announced it had struck a new co-financing and production deal with Universal.

Despicable 2 has already earned well north of $316 million worldwide.

New Line Picks Up Secret Horror Pitch from 'Friday the 13th' Writers (Exclusive)

Mark Swift, left, and Damian Shannon
New Line has picked up an untitled and top-secret horror pitch from Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the writers behind the company’s 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th and 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason.

Chris Bender, J.C. Spink and Jake Weiner of New Line-based BenderSpink are producing.

No details of the pitch are being revealed, but it is described as a potential franchise starter. It is not part of the microbudget and found-footage trend.

STORY: Warner Bros. Gives Up 'Friday the 13th' Rights to Board Christopher Nolan's 'Interstellar'

Dave Neustadter and Walter Hamada are overseeing for New Line.

BenderSpink is gearing up for the Aug. 7 release of We’re the Millers, the comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis.

Shannon and Swift are New Line favorites, having worked on adaptations of comic books Hawaiian Dick and Power and Glory, both set up at the company. The duo is repped by UTA, Magnet Management and McKuin Frankel.

Box Office Report: 'The Heat' Bringing Down the 'White House' in Early Friday Returns

Melissa McCarthy can apparently do no wrong at the box office.

Based on early Friday ticket sales, Paul Feig's comedy The Heat -- starring McCarthy opposite Sandra Bullock -- could near $40 million in its debut, enough to easily beat Roland Emmerich's big-budget tentpole White House Down, headlined by another hot box-office star, Channing Tatum.

White House Down, also starring Jamie Foxx, may not cross $30 million in its North American opening, a blow for Emmerich and Sony, which spent $140 million to make the pic. In the film, the president of the United States (Foxx) and a wannabe Secret Service agent (Tatum) team up after the White House is invaded by terrorists and the U.S. Capitol destroyed.

PHOTOS: Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum: Exclusive Portraits of the 'White House Down' Stars

One problem -- White House Down comes out just three months after FilmDistrict's White House-under-siege film Olympus Has Fallen played in theaters. Another is a glut of male-skewing action films in the market.

20th Century Fox's The Heat, meanwhile, marks another coup for McCarthy and Feig, as well as for Bullock. To date, McCarthy's top opening at the domestic box office is Identity Thief, which debuted earlier this year to $34.6 million.

The Heat -- the first female offering of the summer, costing a modest $43 million to produce -- stars Bullock as a strict FBI agent who is forced to team up with McCarthy's rough-around-the-edges Boston street cop.

STORY: Box Office Report: 'White House Down' Earns $1.35 Mil, 'The Heat' Warms With $1 Mil Thursday

Feig's Bridesmaids grossed $26.2 million in its domestic debut in May 2011. The film, which starred McCarthy along with Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph, became a female-friendly comedy hit and has gone on to gross $288.4 million to date worldwide.

At current pacing, White House Down could become one of Emmerich's lowest-grossing debuts to date for a broad tentpole. In summer 2004, The Day After Tomorrow debuted to $68.7 million. Independence Day -- which also featured the destruction of the White House -- opened to $50.2 million in July 1996.

Monsters University is likely to stay at No. 1 in its second weekend with a gross in the $45 million-plus range. The Disney/Pixar film, the prequel to 2001 hit Monsters, Inc., debuted in 4,004 theaters last weekend to earn $82.4 million, making it Pixar's second-highest opening ever behind 2010's Toy Story 3. Holdover World War Z continues to show strength as well and could be neck-and-neck with The Heat.

Follow me on Twitter @sajilpl

Box Office Report: 'Monsters University' Scares Up $30.5 Million on Friday

Colorful, kid-friendly monsters defeated swarming hoards of zombies at the box office Friday, but it was a spirited battle.

By the time the dust had settled, Disney’s release of Pixar’s Monsters University had grossed an estimated $30.5 million for the day in 4,004 theaters in North America. The G-rated prequel to 2001’s Monsters Inc., directed by Don Scanlon with the voices of Billy Crystal and John Goodman, earned an A CinemaScore and is on track to rack up an opening weekend topping $70 million. The 3D animated pic began rolling out at 8 p.m. Thursday in select theaters, where it grossing $2.6 million for the night.

STORY: Marco Beltrami's 'World War Z' Score: Pig Skulls and Emergency Sirens 

Paramount’s World War Z, the PG-13 zombie pic, which the studio co-financed with Skydance Productions, took in $25 million Friday, including $3.6 million from midnight screenings. Picking up a B+ CinemaScore, the movie, directed by Marc Forster and starring Brad Pitt, bowed in 3,607 theaters and is headed for an opening weekend in the $60 million range.

Meanwhile, Warners and Legendary’s Man of Steel entered its second weekend with a strong third-place showing. Zack Snyder’s superhero opus collected $12.7 million for the day, bringing its domestic tally to $181.5 million as it flies into a weekend that could hit $40 million or more.

Overseas, World War Z already is drumming up strong business, scoring $5.7 million Thursday and pacing in line with Christopher Nolan's Inception. In South Korea, the film grossed $1.5 million, ahead of the $1.1 million earned a week earlier by Man of Steel. Inception's opening-day gross in South Korea was $941,000.

World War Z also grossed $1.1 million in Australia on Thursday, in line with Inception. And the movie entered the record books in Argentina, grossing $710,000 -- doubling Man of Steel's Thursday take there and posting the third-best Thursday to date in that market.