Box Office: 'Warm Bodies' Eyeing $20 Mil-Plus Debut; Stallone's 'Bullet' Meek

3:00 PM PST 2/1/2013 by Pamela McClintock

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Warm Bodies Nicholas Hoult in Car - H 2012

Jonathan Wenk/Summit Entertainment

The "Twilight"-esque romantic zombie flick will easily top Super Bowl weekend at the domestic box office; Stallone's new action pic might not open to much more than $5 million or $6 million.

Summit Entertainment's Warm Bodies is on its way to winning the weekend box office with a debut of $20 million or more, a tidy sum considering Sunday's Super Bowl will take a huge bite out of moviegoing.

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On Friday alone, Warm Bodies is on course to earn $9 million to $10 million.

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Billed as a paranormal romantic comedy, Warm Bodies stars Nicholas Hoult as a zombie who rescues a girl (Teresa Palmer) from imminent death at the hands of his fellow undead. An unlikely romance develops, setting off an unforeseen chain of events.

Jonathan Levine directed Warm Bodies, based on the popular young-adult book by Isaac Marion (Summit, of course, is the studio that adapted Stephenie Meyer's blockbuster YA Twilight series).

Early numbers for Sylvester Stallone's new action pic Bullet to the Head are grim. The R-rated film might only gross $2 million on Friday (including $120,000 in midnights runs) and $5 million or $6 million for the weekend.

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Produced and financed by Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment and IM Global/Reliance, Bullet to the Head is based on the French graphic novel Du plomb dans la tete and stars Stallone as a hitman who teams up with a young Washington, D.C. detective (Sung Kang) to track down a team of ruthless criminals behind two murders that brought them together in the first place. Warner Bros. is releasing the movie domestically per its deal with Dark Castle.

Bowing in limited release Friday is the crime comedy Stand Up Guys, starring Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin. Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions are opening the pic in 659 theaters. Stand Up Guys was directed by Fisher Stevens. In the film, Pacino's character is reunited with his old partner in crime after serving 28 years in prison, only to find that his partner has his own ax to grind.