Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass didn’t have an eponymous weekend at the box office, but it still might eek out a narrow win when actual numbers are revealed on Monday.  Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s comic earned an estimated $19.75 million, just $250,000 behind the estimate for Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon, which slipped just 19.6% in its fourth weekend.  The 3D animated Dragon has now amassed $158 million and appears likely to make it well over the $200 million mark.  If its apparent victory holds up, it will extend the string of box office wins by 3D films (Clash of the Titans actually took the crown last week, although like Kick-Ass it was in second place before the actual Sunday numbers were tallied).

Fox’s comedy Date Night, which dropped a modest 31.4%, was in third place with an estimated $17.3 million, just ahead of Death at a Funeral, Neil LaBute’s remake of Frank Oz’s 2007 British black comedy with a predominantly African-American cast, which brought in an estimated $17 million.  Warners’ Clash of the Titans fell 40.8%, but still managed to easily take the fifth spot with an estimated $15.7 million.  The post-production-added 3D film has now earned $133 million domestically and continues to do well overseas.

While Kick-Ass didn’t manage to match analysts’ forecasts, which were generally in the $25-$30 million range, it has amassed a bevy of good reviews (78% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), and could continue to perform well in coming weeks if positive word of mouth spreads interest in the movie beyond hardcore comic book fans.  With its Thursday night openings counted, Kick-Ass managed to top the charts on Friday with $7.65 million.  It slipped to $7.25 million on Saturday, which is not all that bad considering that the Friday showings also included the Thursday night totals, but it is an indication that Kick-Ass is probably not a “date” movie.  Over 60% of the audience for Kick-Ass was male, and 50% was under 25.

In spite of a savvy marketing campaign, going into the weekend Kick-Ass had an awareness rate of just 72% whereas most blockbusters manage over 90 per cent awareness. This demonstrates the problem of publicizing a relatively unknown new comic book-based property, but it doesn’t mean that Kick-Ass can’t post solid numbers in coming weeks.  It will face competition in its core young male demographic from another lesser-known comic book property, the Vertigo-based The Losers next weekend and from the remake of the well known, A Nightmare on Elm Street on April 30th.  It should be interesting to see if all those good reviews turn into good word of mouth and turn the $35 million Kick-Ass into a hit.  Its success would mean that there would be more no compromises independently produced cutting edge comic book-based movies like the recently announced adaptation of Garth Ennis’ Crossed (see “Following the Kick-Ass Model”).  

Even before the movie opened here Marvel had shipped 100,000 copies of the Kick-Ass Premiere Hardcover, and while its debut may be slightly disappointing to box office prognosticators, it was big enough to introduce the property to a far larger audience than read the original mini-series, and might just prove to be large enough (along with the DVD release) to make Millar and Romita’s Kick-Ass the number one superhero graphic novel of 2010.

Although none of the top ten films posted huge numbers during this frame, the total box office was up nearly 12% from the same weekend last year when 17 Again topped the charts.