Box Office Report: 'The Vow' Seduces With $15.4 Mil Friday, 'Safe House' Scores $13.8 Mil

Screen Gems and Spyglass' The Vow, starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum, beat Universal’s Denzel Washingon-Ryan Reynolds starrer Safe House at the Friday box office, but the weekend race is far from over.

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What’s known for sure is that both films are vastly overperforming, and each headed for a $38 million to $39 million weekend. Overall domestic box office revenues should hit $170 million thanks to four strong new entries, making for the biggest non-holiday weekend ever in February and up 30 percent over last year.

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The Vow earned $15.4 million Friday, followed by Safe House with $13.8 million. Many box office observers believe Safe House will begin to close the gap on Saturday, since The Vow could be more front loaded. The Vow could easily become the top opener ever for Screen Gems, besting the $30.5 million debut of Dear John.

One advantage Safe House has -- an A- CinemaScore, versus a B CinemaScore for The Vow. Also, Safe House is playing much more evenly than expected among the genders, with females making up 48 percent of Friday night’s audience. Females made up a whopping 74 percent of The Vow’s audience.

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In terms of age, Safe House is skewing older, however, with 81 percent of Friday night’s audience over the age of 25, compared to 55 percent for The Vow.

Twentieth Century Fox’s 3D re-release of George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace, grossed $8.6 million on Friday for a $23 million to 23.5 million weekend. It will compete to some degree with Warner Bros./New Line’s Journey 2: The Mysterious Island for family audiences on Saturday and Sunday.

Journey 2 — receiving an A- CinemaScore — is performing better than expected. It grossed $6.6 million on Friday for a projected opening in the same range as Phantom Meance.

Fox's Chronicle and Daniel Radcliffe starrer The Woman in Black came in No. 5 and No. 6 on their second Friday. Chronicle grossed $3.5 million for a cume of $31.4 million, while Woman in Black grossed $3.4 million for a gross of $28.6 million.