Box Office Report: 'Snow White and the Huntsman' Headed for a Bullish $48 Mil-$52 Mil Weekend

Universal didn’t saturate theaters with midnight screenings of Snow White and the Huntsman, but a sizeable number of fans still sought it out. And based on solid showings at early Friday screenings, it now appears the movie will rack up $17 million-$19 million today and gross a bullish $48 million-$52 million during the course of the weekend.

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The latest retelling of the Snow White tale -- turned by director Rupert Sanders and stars Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth into an art-directed action pic -- attracted $1.38 million in its initial witching-hour screenings.

That’s less than what Men in Black 3 posted last week at its midnight showings, when it drew $1.55 million. But considering that MIB3 was playing 2,232 theaters, while Snow bowed in just 1,092, it made for a healthier per-theater average. In fact, on a per-theater-average basis, Snow nearly doubled MIB3’s showing.

Universal had carefully downplaying expectations surrounding the PG-13, $170 million feature, setting a weekend domestic target in the low- to mid-$30 million range. But given improving tracking for Snow White during the past few days, competitors expected the film -- the only new wide release hitting theaters this weekend -- to do significantly better than that.