An interesting battle is shaping up at the box office this weekend between Luc Besson’s sci-fi action movie Lucy, which stars Scarlett Johannson, and Brett Ratner’s Hercules, which features Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.  While this is expected to be a bit of a down weekend, the lull before the storm that is Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy, which numerous analysts, including those here at ICv2, think just might turn out to be the biggest movie of the summer, it is possible that the combined drawing power of Lucy and Hercules can bolster Tinseltown’s summer season, which is currently running a disastrous 20% below last year’s record totals.
 
On Thursday night Lucy, which began its Thursday night showings at 8pm, managed to pull in $2.74 million, while Hercules, which is based on the comic Hercules: The Thracian Wars and started its showings at 7pm, earned an estimated $2.1 million.  Ratner’s Hercules movie has taken some flack recently, when news spread that the writer of the original comic wanted his name taken off the film, and actor Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules on TV, announced that his attempts to get a cameo in the film were rebuffed (see "'Hercules' Takes a Couple of Hits").   Based on the buzz, the two films’ Thursday night numbers and ticket presales, analysts believe that Lucy will likely win the weekend with over $30 million, while Hercules will probably be more in the $20 million range.